By Rakashi Chand, Reader Services

Happy Winter Solstice!

I have gathered a few historic winter views of Boston for you to enjoy on this long winter’s night.

To begin, let’s just say that Bostonians have always been a hardy lot. “Scene in Winter Street, Boston, during the late snow storm” by W. J. Peirce, illustrates the horse-drawn Boston & Jamaica Plains Trolley attempting to get through the storm of 1854. Today we complain about trolley service delays during snow storms, imagine trudging out with a shovel to clear the trolley path through Boston’s congested city streets in 1854. 

In modern culture we romantically idealize sleigh rides through the snow as a common winter pastime of “yester-year”. Well, apparently that was not enough for Bostonians who clearly craved much more excitement. Lets reimagine that “Currier and Ives” Christmas image and instead think of Sleigh Racing on Boston Neck circa 1850. Sleigh Racing was a popular winter activity at the time and this graphic depicts the crowds milling around applauding the action as men race down Boston Neck (now filled in) with the Washington House in the background. 

And perhaps the most wonderful of all Winter activities, with an equally delightful description, “Coasting on the Common” seems like the perfect winter thing to do, doesn’t it? For those of you who are not familiar with Boston, the Boston Common is a public park in the middle of the city, directly in front of the Massachusetts State House. Published in Harper’s Weekly, V. 19, no. 946, February 13, 1875 p.132 this graphic “Coasting on Boston Common” from a sketch by Edmund Henry Garrett, depicts boys on sleds on Boston Common racing downhill, while adults in the crowd look on. An insert in the upper righthand corner shows the boys pulling their sleds back up the hill. The city of Boston actually built and maintained the ‘coasting’ course, and even built bridges over the course for spectators to watch the action from overhead. 

The article states “boys of all ages, sizes and complexions take part in this exhilarating pastime.” And that “Nothing but the lack of unoccupied sleds, says a Boston Paper, prevents the young ladies from taking part in the sport. This is a sad commentary on the gallantry of Boston youth. Why shouldn’t the young ladies, and the old folks too, have their share of fun and frolic if they feel inclined?” Although the article does go on to say that “young ladies “come to grief” before reaching the end on the course”, it is still rather liberal for 1875, indicating that ‘Coasting on the Common’ was truly open to all.

If you happen to be in Boston to enjoy the winter holiday, stop into to see our exhibitions, which are free and open to the public.  The exhibitions includes a special display of the “Anti-Christmas laws”- yes! you read that correctly! Curious to learn more? Stop in to see the Anti-Christmas proclamation.During the holiday week, the galleries will be open Tuesday (12/26) through Saturday (12/30) from 10am to 4pm.

By Alex Bush, Reader Services

With flu season fast approaching and many coworkers and peers already succumbing to illness, the time has come to consider our health and safety for the wintry months ahead. What can we, “the enterprising Mariner—the hardy Soldier—the industrious Citizen,” do to mitigate “the direful consequences of infection?” William Burrell, a late-1700s seller of special medicine chests designed for sailors, collaborated with several physicians to create a pamphlet designed to adapt his sailors’ medicine chests for use by the common citizen. It contains page upon page of useful advice on treating anything from the common cold to gunshot wounds. Note that while William Burrell may not have been an actual doctor, his expertise in preparing medicine chests was definitely enough to qualify him to publish medical advice.

Published in 1798, Medical advice; chiefly for the consideration of seamen: and adapted for the use of travellers, or domestic life can be found within the MHS’ Evans microfiche collection of Early American Imprints. Within this pamphlet Mr. Burrell describes dozens of maladies common during the late 18^th century with an eye toward prevention and quick recovery via home remedy. Burrell acknowledges that, shy of “devising and applying means to destroy the Fons et origo mali, (fountain and origin of evil,) and restore the purity of the atmosphere in which the patient breathes,” the best practice for combating illness is to keep the patient clean and comfortable. Most of this is achieved by way of steam, hot water, and a combination of chemicals. Although it is unlikely that Burrell’s medicine chests are still on the market today, the pamphlet fortunately includes a compilation of names and suggested doses for most of the medicines mentioned. Simply visit your local pharmacy for everything listed except, perhaps, tinctures of opium.

In general, Burrell warns that cold climates as well as rapid changes in temperature can predispose one to sickness. The same is true for excessive drinking of beer and spirits, so take care to stay sober during any upcoming holiday parties. Should you find yourself becoming ill, restrict your diet to bland foods such as gruel, pasta, oysters, and boiled meat. Those who remain healthy should bolster their diets with “sallads,” which are “saponaceous, detergent, cooling, and antiseptic,” as well as “opening and diuretic.” However, Burrell warns that salads should be avoided if one feels cold or nervous.

Lithograph showing a phlebotomy, London 1804, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology

In terms of cold symptoms, Burrell’s advice varies according to diagnosis and outside conditions. Most of it, however, involves bloodletting. Bloodletting (or bleeding) was a popular method of treatment for a wide range of ailments from the 1600s into the 1800s, after which it slowly declined in popularity. According to Burrell, bloodletting is an especially necessary step when the climate is cold. For fevers, intersperse repeated bleedings with induced vomiting. For coughs, bleeding and periodic doses of tincture of opium are recommended. In order to prevent malaria while vacationing in warmer areas, remove a pint of blood to account for the change in temperature and allow yourself to sweat freely.

Bear in mind, however, that a footnote to Burrell’s pamphlet warns against the dangers of excessive bloodletting:

it is of the utmost importance not to reduce the system by bleeding or any other evacuation whatever, below the ordinary healthy standard, as a firm constitution and a chearful and fearless mind, most powerfully resist the sedative action of pestilential contagion.

“Life of George Washington: The Christian,” lithograph by Claude Regnier, after Junius Brutus Stearns, 1853. Washington Library, Mount Vernon, VA.

Recall, for instance, the circumstances under which George Washington died. In December of 1799, after spending most of the day supervising his Mount Vernon farm in freezing rain and snow, the former president refused to remove his wet clothing for dinner. Naturally, the next day he developed a sore throat. Spending another full day outside in three inches of snow only made his sore throat worse, and by the following morning he was terribly ill and having trouble breathing. Attended by three physicians and his wife, Washington was given a mixture of molasses, vinegar, and butter to soothe his throat. A firm believer in the healing power of bloodletting, he also asked that half a pint of blood be removed from his arm while refusing other medicines and treatments. “You know I never take anything for a cold,” he said. “Let it go as it came.” As his condition worsened over the next ten hours, an estimated total of two and a half quarts of blood were removed from Washington’s body, amounting to over half of the blood in his body. He passed away at 10 p.m. on Saturday, December 17, 1799. Take care to remember this story while treating your own cold-weather ailments using bloodletting.

Chemicals in the form of gargles, tinctures, and skin treatments are also popular cures in Burrell’s pamphlet. According to Burrell, most oils and tinctures work best when dissolved in plain water or “common nitrous drink,” which can be made by dissolving a few grains of nitre in water. Add citrus juice, molasses, or vinegar to aid in digestion and soothe the throat. Bodily aches and pains caused by influenza or infection can be remedied using a blister, a paste made from mashing a special type of “blister beetle,” to draw toxins to the surface of the skin. The blistering toxin found in blister beetles has been used medically as a vesicant- an agent that causes blistering – as well as an aphrodisiac since the 12^th century BC. Use it well, but do not eat it—you will almost definitely die.

With Burrell’s expert and up-to-date advice in mind, venture forth into this year’s cold season without fear!

References

Burrell, William, Medical advice; chiefly for the consideration of seamen: and adapted for the use of travellers, or domestic life, (New York: Printed for the author by R. Wilson, 1798).

“The Death of George Washington,” Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, 2017, accessed on 30 November 2017, http://www.mountvernon.org/digital-encyclopedia/article/the-death-of-george-washington/

Vadakan, Vibul, MD, FAAP, “The Asphyxiating and Exsanguinating Death of President George Washington,” The Permanente Journal 8, No. 2, Spring 2004, accessed on 30 November 2017, http://www.thepermanentejournal.org/files/Spring2004/time.pdf.

Schmidt, Justin, “Cantharidin and Meloids: a review of classical history, biosynthesis, and function,” 2002, accessed on 30 November 2017, http://archive.li/Srh6y.

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

After you’ve processed several collections of papers here at the Massachusetts Historical Society, you start to see familiar names crop up. It’s not just the usual Cabots and Saltonstalls and Lowells, etc., or those famous Boston ministers, merchants, and abolitionists. There’s also Edward Atkinson, who seemed to know just about everybody. I find that reformer Dorothea Dix makes a fairly regular appearance. But there’s one correspondent I’ve come across a few times that intrigued me, not least because of her beautiful handwriting. She was known by various names: Esther Frances Alexander, Francesca Alexander, or just plain Fanny Alexander.

Fanny was an illustrator, author, folklorist, and translator. Her father was portrait painter Francis Alexander, and her mother Lucia (née Swett) was an etcher, author, and philanthropist. Fanny was their only child, born in Boston on 27 February 1837, although she spent most of her life in Italy. Fortunately for us, she kept up a correspondence with friends around the world. Her letters appear in a few different collections at the MHS, including the Bowditch-Codman-Balch and Fay-Mixter family papers. Her most substantial and personal letters here are the five she wrote to her friend Sally Hayward in the Joseph H. Hayward family papers.

Fanny wrote to Sally in great detail about her life in Italy and her artistic work. The letters typically run to at least four densely written pages and cover a variety of subjects. For example, on 28 February 1871, Fanny condoled with Sally on the death of her cousin, congratulated her on the imminent birth of a nephew, and recounted a story she’d read that inspired her latest sketch.

The story comforted me so much, that I could not resist turning it into a picture in pen and ink, which will be the first of my works ever offered for sale in Boston. […] I should like very much to have you see it, as it is a picture which I have put my whole heart into, as I have hardly ever done into any picture in my life.

She also described her painting studio “up under the roof.”

It is a pretty little room, and always full of flowers, so that it looks like a garden. […] I have a few little presents there, almost all from poor people; those which I receive from the rich are disposed of in the room down stairs, but my little painting room is the poor people’s room especially.

A few months later, Fanny wrote about another project she’d begun.

I am busy, among other things, in writing down a curious collection of legends and poetry, which I learnt long ago at Abetone, and which it seems a pity should be forgotten. I think that I shall have it printed some time, but how or where, I have not the least idea.

In 1882, legendary art critic John Ruskin was introduced to Fanny’s work, and he was impressed by her skill and simplicity. He went on to publish volumes of her art and stories and is usually credited with bringing her to the attention of the wider world. But Fanny would be remembered not only for her creative output, which inspired sonnets by James Russell Lowell and John Greenleaf Whittier, but also for her piety, her love of nature, and especially her charity. Many poor Italians considered her a saint.

She also lived in Florence during a time of great change. This passage from her letter of 12 December 1874 is particularly interesting.

Florence is now sadly changed since I first knew it; modern ideas have arrived even here, with the usual modern antipathy to everything venerable and beautiful; they have taken down our grand old walls, that were nearly six hundred years old, and have, for the sake of widening the business streets, and the bridges, destroyed some chapels, and other buildings, of great antiquity and beauty. All these things have grieved me more than I can tell you. […] However, there is no alternative but to die young, or to see changes.

Fanny lived a very sheltered life, with no formal education. In 1885, her eyesight began to fail, and she was all but blind by the end of her life. She had also broken her hip and walked with a crutch or cane. But on 22 August 1910, in a letter to Charles P. Bowditch, her mother Lucia described Fanny as busy and content.

Her room is full of the poor and the rich, who all make friends, and read the Bible, and eat bread and chocolate in company. Half blind and whole lame, she is the happiest of the happy.

Fanny’s father died in 1880. Fanny and Lucia lived together the rest of their lives, devoted to each other. According to Notable American Women, 1607-1950 (p. 35), “After the death of her mother in 1916 at the age of 102, Francesca took to her bed and remained there until her own death, at seventy-nine, the following January.” She is buried with her parents in Florence.

By Rakashi Chand, Reader Services

Today marks the 300^th anniversary of the execution of the Whydah pirates in Boston, Massachusetts, marched from their Boston jail to the gallows and hanged for their crimes of piracy.

No less a person than Puritan minister Cotton Mather recorded the day of the execution in his diary:

 “15. G. D. There is good this Day to be done, on a very solemn Occasion. Six Pirates were this Day executed. I took a long and sad walk with them, from the Prison, to the Place of Execution. I successively bestowed the best Instructions I could, upon each of them. Arriving to the Tree of Death, I pray’d with them, and with the vast Assembly of Spectators, as pertinently and as profitably as I could.”

*****

Not much is known about young Samuel Bellamy, also known as Black Bellamy, the captain of the Whydah. Bellamy and his crew captured the three hundred ton merchant slaver Whydah as it left Jamaica on route to London in late February or early March of 1717. The ship originally had 18 guns but the crew mounted an additional ten, making it a formidable sight for any vessel to which it gave chase. According to one of the pirates, John Brown, they had about 20,000 pounds in gold and silver aboard the Whydah from “a-pyrating.” Bellamy brought his fleet to the outer shores of Cape Cod, legend says, to see a beautiful young lady by the name of Maria Hallett, whom he fell in love with on the dunes of Eastham the year before. If Maria truly did exist, we do not have a historical record; but it is more likely that the pirates came north to trade their plunder (desirable illicit goods) with eager merchants in Newport, Connecticut, New York, and Boston.

The Whydah sank off the shore of Cape Cod the night of April 26^th, 1717. When the storm rose up that caught the Whydah off the coast of the Cape, the ship was driven onto the shoals and it soon became apparent the Whydah would not survive. Thirty foot waves destroyed the ship and drowned almost all of the pirates and their prisoners. The next morning inhabitants of the nearby towns discovered on the beach the gruesome sight – countless gnarled bodies washed ashore by the tides along with wreckage from the ship – which would haunt them for years. At least 102 bodies washed up on shore.

This was the fate of Captain Bellamy and his pirate crew, except for seven survivors who were arrested and sent to Boston for trial. One of the seven, Thomas Davis, was found innocent and released, then disappears from record. The other six men were found guilty of piracy through trial: John Brown, Simon Van Vorst, Hendrick Quintor, Thomas Baker, Peter Hoof and John Shuan.

*****

Cotton Mather went often to visit, study, instruct and ultimately try to provide salvation for the pirates in their Boston jail. It seems the good minister was thoroughly intrigued by these ‘sinners’, and to our great benefit, for without his writings about the fates of the Whydah pirates we would have little record.

After the execution, Mather wrote Instructions to the living, from the condition of the dead : A brief relation of remarkables in the shipwreck of above one hundred pirates, who were cast away in the ship Whido, on the coast of New-England, April 26. 1717. And in the death of six, who after a fair trial at Boston, were convicted & condemned, Octob. 22. And executed, Novemb. 15. 1717. With some account of the discourse had with them on the way to their execution. And a sermon preached on their occasion. [Boston, Printed by John Allen, for Nicholas Boone, at the sign of the Bible in Cornhill. 1717]

Thanks to this pamphlet – available here in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society – we have the conversations and words of the pirates themselves. Mather published his Instructions to the living, from the condition of the dead… a mere month after the execution, perhaps to appease the great curiosity the pirates had caused, while also using the event as an opportunity to teach his flock. Mather again revisited the subject in his sermon “Warnings to Them that Make Haste to be Rich” on 8 December 1717.

So why did Cotton Mather go to meet with these pirates and why did he put so much thought into their state? He was, for all intents and purposes, interviewing dead men tried, and as Mather clearly stated, “after a fair trial,” convicted and sentenced to death. So here he writes “What may be offere’d, is, A Recollection of Several Passages, which occurred in discourse with the prisoners, while they walked from the prison to the Place of Execution.”

Oh my, can you imagine walking to your execution, your last moments on this earth, while Cotton Mather asks you questions? Perhaps Mather saw this as an opportunity for himself; after all there was nothing more wretched in all the world than a pirate and if he, the great moral ballast of the colonies, could save their souls, well, there would certainly be Puritan brownie points to be earned!

Mather ends his account with “Behold, Reader, the End of Piracy!”

*****

Most Bostonians today would be surprised to learn that a few hundred years ago Boston was known as a “Port Where Pirates Hang.” Even more surprising is how we got that reputation because, indeed, we hanged pirates, and yes, they were an actual problem! So the next time you watch Pirates of the Caribbean or celebrate “Talk like a Pirate Day,” think no further than the streets of Boston!

For more on Cotton Mather materials here at the MHS, start with this online collection guide for the Cotton Mather papers view our collection guide, then consider Visiting the Library!

By Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

Today we return to the 1917 diary of Gertrude Codman Carter. You may read the previous entries here:

Introduction | January | February | March | April | May

June | July | August | September | November | December

We are nearing the end of Gertrude’s year as a featured diarist at The Beehive. While the month of November 1917 began with “great fun” and a whirl of social activities, it ended under a dark cloud as the Carters found out that one of Sir Gilbert Carter’s sons from his previous marriage was killed on November 28th, 1917 when a German submarine torpedoed a boat, the Apapa, on which he was traveling as a passenger. “Today should have alas had a dark cloud had I known it for the war was to cast yet another shadow on our lives,” writes Gertrude as she gathers her thoughts and fills in her diary pages.

In December, I will be closing out this year of reading alongside Gertrude Codman Carter as she chronicled her life as an upper-class white woman in British colonial Barbados one hundred years ago. Stay tuned for a new diary read-along in January 2018!

* * *

Nov. 1

Laddie took me out to Spion Kop to swim. Great fun & as always amusing. We went on to the Charles Sealys afterward & danced. [Illegible] haze of tobacco spoke & little Laurie John on the table as a center piece. “What use is water, when you’re dry – dry – dry -” An appalling but amusing ditty on the gramophone. And Nell Manning being pulled as she swam, by a boatman in a wherry.

Nov. 2

To Sweet Park to Help.

Nov. 3

Great Eastern fete. Huge success.

Lady Probyn gave a big dinner party & I gave a supper party.

Nov. 4

Nov. 5

To Park cleaning up.

To Charlie Hayes to sketch baby.

Nov. 6

Tea at St. Anne’s to meet the new Mrs Hancock.

Nov. 7

1. Help Society

Government House tennis tournament.

Nov. 22

Savannah Club meeting of [illegible].

Nov. 23

Burtons party to meet the Hancocks.

Nov. 24 [numbered but left blank]

[Nov. 25]

Chart of [illegible].

Nov. 26

To swim with L. at the Sealeys.

Today should have alas had a dark cloud had I known it for the war was to cast yet another shadow on our lives.

Nov. 29

[Illegible] all to tea with the [illegible] boat men. Most amusing.

Nov. 30

Church parade at St. Mary’s a depressing one.

* * *

As always, if you are interested in viewing the diary or letters yourself, 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.