By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

This is the final installment of a five-part series on the Jarrett family letters at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Click here to read Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

In this post, I conclude the story of Julia Jarrett and her son Homer, as documented in the Jarrett family letters here at the MHS. Julia had been born into slavery in the 1850s, and in 1909 was living with members of her sprawling family on a farm in Shiloh, Ga. Homer, after years of peripatetic wandering through the Midwest and Northeast, had settled here in Boston, where he would apparently spend the rest of his life. Below is a complete transcription of the fifth and final letter of the collection.

Shiloh. Ga.

Oct. 11 1909

Mr Homer C Jarrett.

My dear son

I wrote you some time but no ancer have I received. Why have you not ancered my letter. If you are sick write and let me know. I have been looking for a letter some time.

I received a letter from Claud. He said a Change had taken place with him. It he said made him cry and made him do things that he never did before. I was so glad I didnt know what to do. The children got the letter out of the box and carried it to the field and I went out thair and they read it to me and I couldent help from shouting and crying and rejoicing.

All at home is well at present. I have been sick for two weeks. I went to see Sister Jane Hawkins. Yesterday Sister Sallie went with me. Sister Jane has been sick but she is better now. Grandpa is well and is try to work as usial.

Homer you must be a good boy and try to prey. I preys mighty for you all and the Lord has give me Claud. He is fix up all right and I trust you is all ready fit meat for the Lord. I trust that I will see you once more in life but if I never see you in life hope to meet you where parten [parting] is no more.

All at home sends love to you. All the children sends their best regards to you. Cora and family is well. Wilson and family is well. The drouth [drought] cut the cotton crops off. We has picked out two bales of cotton but we dont know how many bales we will get. Hasent geathered corn yet.

I remain yours Mother

Julia Jarrett.

This letter was written more than two years after the last. I don’t know whether any correspondence was exchanged in the interim (if so, it may be found in the Homer C. Jarrett letters at the University of Georgia), but Julia’s concern for her son is palpable and touching. She was anxious at not hearing from him and worried not just about his physical, but also his spiritual well-being. Overjoyed at his brother Claud’s new-found commitment to religion, she urged Homer to follow his example and “be a good boy.”

The envelope is addressed to Homer at what looks like #410 A. Col” Ave., which may have been Colonial or Columbus Avenue. He had traveled north at the cusp of the Great Migration, which historians describe as taking place in two waves between 1910 to 1970. Homer would be followed by millions of other African Americans seeking opportunity and escaping Jim Crow. According to National Park Service data, the Black population of Boston, which grew less than that of other Northern cities, still nearly doubled between 1900 and 1930.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any more information about Julia than I’ve shared in this and previous posts. Homer Clifford Jarrett worked in real estate in Boston and died unmarried in 1959 at the age of 76 or 77. Some of his siblings lived into the 1960s and ‘70s, and amazingly little sister Lizzie lived all the way to 1988. To think that a woman who lived long enough to watch the 1988 Winter Olympics on TV had had a mother born enslaved is to see how few generations removed from slavery we are today.

By Matthew Ahern, Library Assistant

In 1878, the future of the US currency was on the minds of many American citizens. With America in the middle of an economic depression contributing to anxieties around American monetary policies that had existed since the Civil War, the Greenback party had made considerable gains. Greenbackers saw money not restricted by bullion as being inherently helpful to the lower classes during this economic depression, while traditionally minded gold standard supporters feared what Greenback policy would do to the confidence in the American dollar, both domestically and abroad. In 1878, Massachusetts would be confronted by this debate when ardent Greenbacker Benjamin Butler’s was pitted against businessman Thomas Talbot in the gubernatorial election that year. In a contest that mixed personal reputation with monetary policy, it would be Talbot’s “Honest Money, Honest Men”[1] pitch that would win the day.

During the summer of 1878, Civil War General, and disillusioned ex-Republican congressmen, Benjamin F. Butler found himself as the conductor of a populist movement on a Greenback platform that ultimately led to him receiving the Democratic nomination for Governor. Almost as if in response to Butler and his followers, the Republican party nominated the mild-mannered mill owner Thomas Talbot. A former acting Governor of Massachusetts, Talbot supported the gold standard and took a far more moderate stance to both business and labor reform. This election, with these two contrasting figures would be just as much about personality and personal history as it was about policy.

Talbot grew up in poverty, receiving only a partial education, and working primarily as a mill worker when he was younger. Eventually he established the modestly sized Talbot Mills in Billerica and had quickly earned himself a strong reputation paying his employees high wages with fair treatment during a time when mill workers were often treated poorly. By the 1850s, he had entered local Republican politics, and was eventually tapped to be Gov. Washburn’s running-mate in his successful 1874 ticket. Only a few months later, Talbot would find himself serving as the acting Governor after Washburn’s electoral victory for the late Charles Sumner’s seat in the US Senate. Though he was generally well liked during his time in office, Talbot destroyed his chances at winning re-election when he vetoed a liquor reform bill due to his temperance convictions (A stance that would be his political Achilles heel). Still a strong voice in the party, he would need to wait until 1878 to get another shot at the office of Governor.[2]

Butler lived a rather different life. Growing up in a family with some means, Butler benefited from an education from Philips Exeter and Colby College. Setting up a legal practice in Lowell, he engaged in speculation and would become a majority stakeholder in the Middlesex Company, a large mill in the city. Entering politics around the same time as Talbot, Butler was originally a Democrat, and first switched party affiliations to the Republican party during the Civil War. As a Major-General for the Union, he was known as an abysmal battlefield commander, but effective administrator. Post-war, he would serve in the US Congress as a Republican, though eventually growing frustrated the Republican platform’s lack of populist policies he had come to favor. Butler switched his party affiliation once more the Greenback Party, and he would carry with him the majority of Democratic party support within the state.

Talbot and his supporters understood that his reputation would be the key to both challenging Butler and adding validity to his more moderate platform. The Talbot Mills had a strong reputation amongst workers, while Butler’s Middlesex Company did not. Talbot was a loyal party-man while Butler had a history of switching affiliations. Talbot also sought no higher office and disliked public ceremony, while many guessed (and rightly so) that Butler, who thrived in the spotlight, would use the Governorship as a step towards the Presidency. Furthermore, he was aided by rising Republican politician Gen. James A. Garfield, who delivered a speech at Faneuil Hall and lampooned Butler’s monetary policy.[3]

Political attacks continued to rage, with Talbot cast as part of the Republican oligarchy currently in power and Butler labeled a demagogue. Despite Butler’s attempts to soften controversial aspects of his history, he was not able to escape the perception of him as a leader of the “Repudiationists, Greenbackers, and Communists” trying to wrestle for power in the state.[4]

In the end, turnout would be massive, with Butler receiving more votes than any other defeated candidate previously, though he was still beaten handily by Talbot 53% to 43%.[5] Voters appeared to have seen the merit in Talbot’s campaign pitch of “Honest Money, Honest Men” over a controversial and radical Butler. Butler would go on to achieve electoral victory in 1882 and launch his bid for the Presidency in his unsuccessful campaign of 1884. As for Talbot, his term in office was characterized by incremental labor and prison reforms, as well as the implementing of the first piece of limited women’s suffrage in the state. Refusing a run for reelection, Talbot became largely a footnote in Massachusetts’s political history, but the campaign he ran in 1878 demonstrated reputation can matter just as much, if not more, than a politician’s policy platform.

[1] “Regular Republican ticket : honest money, honest men.” Rockwell and Churchill, Printer. Boston Athenaeum Collections.

[2] Thomas Talbot: A memorial. Privately printed, 1886. MHS Collections.

[3] Endicott’s letter : Garfield’s speech on honest money : delivered at Faneuil Hall, Boston, Sept. 10, 1878. MHS Collections.

[4] “Address of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee, 1878.” MHS Collections.

[5] “1878 Massachusetts Gubernatorial Election” Congressional Quarterly Guide to U S Elections, second edition.

By Amy Watson, NEH Fellow, University of Alabama at Birmingham

At four o’clock in the morning on 3 July 1745, Boston’s residents awoke to the firing of guns, the beating of drums, and the ringing of bells. The bleary-eyed Bostonians’ alarm soon turned to delight when they learned the cause of the commotion: New England troops had captured the town of Louisbourg, a French colonial port on the island of Île Royale (in what is now Nova Scotia). For the entirety of the day, Bostonians “laid aside all thoughts of business” to celebrate the victory, participating in a city-wide block party that included fireworks, songs, and “plenty of good liquor.” As one eyewitness wrote, “never before, upon any occasion, was observed so universal and unaffected a joy.”[1]

I began my research at the Massachusetts Historical Society with questions about this victory and the celebrations it sparked. Why had New Englanders volunteered to fight the French at Louisbourg? Why were Boston’s residents so thrilled about winning a fishing port on the frigid waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence? What did they hope to get out of it?

I knew that I would be able to find these answers at the MHS, which has the best collection in America on the Louisbourg expedition, including accounts of military leaders, politicians, and New England soldiers.[2] But my favorite find at the MHS was a simple printed ballad that circulated in Boston immediately following the victory. Entitled “New England Bravery,” this broadsheet describes New England’s capture of Louisbourg in verses to be sung to the tune of the old English song “Chivey Chace.” This ballad gave me not only a glimpse into the raucous celebrations that took place on Boston’s streets in July 1745, but also insight into what Louisbourg represented to the ordinary shopkeepers, merchants, and laborers who sang of its conquest. [Figure 1]

“New England Bravery,” shows the real antipathy that New Englanders held towards their French neighbors in North America. In the ballad’s description of the siege itself, there is the normal lighthearted banter between French and New England soldiers: “Jack Frenchman, cries, you English dogs/ come, here’s a pretty Wench.” But the tone turned serious once the New Englanders successfully captured the port, and decided what to do with their defeated foes: “They all are to be sent to France,/ with all the Islanders,/ Which needs must ease our Countrymen/of many Cares and Fears.” The ballad is therefore advocating for the expulsion of the French-speaking inhabitants of Île Royale, a people whose families had lived in the region for more than a century. [Figure Two]

Why did New Englanders want these French islanders gone so badly? The first motive was commercial: Louisbourg provided access to the cod fisheries of the North Atlantic, a lucrative trade which many Massachusetts colonists hoped to capture for themselves. More pressing, however, were the colonists’ geopolitical concerns. There was a growing political movement on both sides of the British Atlantic in the 1740s to take a more militant stance towards France in order to protect and expand Britain’s imperial hegemony in America.[3]  Île Royale was key to this program: British control of Louisbourg could choke off French shipping to Canada, making it too costly for France to continue its colonial operations in the region. As Massachusetts Governor William Shirley wrote, the conquest of Louisbourg was the first, essential step “to drive the French wholly off the North American continent.”[4] The anonymous writer of “New England Bravery” evidently agreed with Shirley’s aims, and many of the ordinary Bostonians who sang the ballad no doubt did as well.

More than a thousand inhabitants of Île Royale would be deported to France in the months following the conquest of Louisbourg, though some would return home briefly in peacetime, only to be expelled again during the Seven Years War. Ultimately, more than ten thousand French-speaking inhabitants of the greater Acadian region would be forced from their homes in the 1750s-60s, a violent undertaking that historian John Mack Faragher has described as an American example of “state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.”[5] Not all New Englanders supported this cruelty. However, “New England Bravery” suggests that in 1745 there were Bostonians in favor of a forced French expulsion singing out in the streets.

[1] Pennsylvania Gazette, 18 July 1745

[2] See William Pepperrell Papers, William Shirley Papers, and William Clarke Journal in Dolbeare Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

[3] For more on this political movement, see Steve Pincus and Amy Watson, “Patriotism after the Hanoverian Succession,” in The Hanoverian Succession in Great Britain and its Empire, eds. Brent Sirota and Allan MacInnes (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2019), 155-174.

[4] William Shirley to Lords Commissioners of Admiralty, 10 July 1745, The National Archives of the UK, ADM 1-3817

[5] John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme (New York: Norton, 2005), 473

By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

This is the fourth installment of a five-part series on the Jarrett family letters at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Click here to read Part I, Part II, and Part III.

Today we return to the story of the Jarretts, a farming family in the small town of Shiloh, Georgia. The Jarrett collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society consists of five letters to Homer Clifford Jarrett (1882-1959) from family members, primarily his mother Julia. The fourth letter was written on 17 July 1907. Below is a complete transcription. As before, I’ll retain misspellings but add sentence and paragraph breaks for readability.

Shiloh Ga.
July. 17, 1907

Mr. Homer C. Jarrett.

Dear son

I received your letter some time ago. This leaves the family well. Hope when this reach it will find you the same. I just received a letter from Claud. It stated that he was well.

People are slow on crops. We just started back to hoeing the second time Monday. The cotton is looking fine. Corn crop is slow. It is not going to be much corn made this year down here.

I dont think we all went to the district meeting last Saturday and Sunday at Shiloh Ga. It was helt at the A.M.E. Church. It was nice times up thair. On Sunday Shack Barney and Shurn Copeland got in fuss. They shot at one and other. Shurn shot at Shack 3 times. Shack shot at Shurn 2 times. But not one got hurt. Shurn is under a hundred dollar [barn]. They hasent got Shack yet but say they is going to have him.

Homer you must be a good boy and try to prey. The people is got to be so bad nowadays. I hope you will be successfull in your new home and luck well. Grandpa is well and sends his best regards to you often speakes of you. Lizzie sends love to you and many sweet kisses. Charlie eyes is something better. He is plowing evey day. Generous is gone back to cooking again. He is not at home now. Sister Cora and family is well. Brother Wilson and family is well.

I hasent got any ink this time. I will try to get some the next time I write you.

So good bye

Your mother
Julia Jarrett

We’ve met most of the family before. Homer’s brother Claud and sister Lizzie have figured prominently in our series so far, and Grandpa, Charlie, and Wilson have made appearances. Cora, another sister, was married to a man named Levi Whitehead, according to online genealogical sources. I don’t know who Generous was, but it’s a great name!

The handwriting of this letter differs from that of the first three. I believe Claud had previously transcribed for his mother, but since he was away, someone else took over the job. I can only guess who the new transcriber was, but I wonder if it might have been Julia’s young daughter Lizzie. We know she was (or at least had been) in school, and in July 1907 she would have been nine years old.

I hit a number of frustrating dead ends researching the details of this letter. I couldn’t find an African Methodist Episcopal church in Shiloh, but it may have closed, moved, merged with another church, or changed denominations. Today, there are more than 500 AME churches in Georgia alone. I also didn’t locate any contemporary accounts of the confrontation between the two men, Shack Barney and Shurn Copeland, and I couldn’t confirm the meaning of “barn” (or “barm”) in this context. I assume it meant bail or a fine.

But details aside, this letter touches on several interesting themes, particularly the precariousness of the Jarretts’ income from their cotton and corn crops. We also see Julia’s concern for her son Homer, so far away from home—concern not just for his physical, but also his moral well-being.

One thing I like about this collection and other family letters I’ve seen at the MHS is that they really give us a sense of how people talked to each other in their everyday lives. This is something that doesn’t come through as strongly in formal correspondence. Phonetic spellings tell us how Julia pronounced certain words: “helt,” for example. It’s almost as if we can hear her voice. I also love the expression “luck well” instead of “have good luck.”

Homer had been moving steadily northward over the course of the previous two years. By 1907, he had reached New England, and this letter is addressed to him at Farragut House, a resort hotel in Rye Beach, N.H., where Homer was presumably working. Farragut House, according to the 1907 publication New England Vacation Resorts (p. 67), was the largest and priciest hotel at Rye Beach, accommodating 300 guests and costing $5.00 a night. The building has since been torn down, but you can find picture postcards of it online.

In my next post, I’ll be concluding the story of the Jarrett family. I hope you’ll join me!

By Viv Williams, Library Assistant

Happy New Year, Readers!

As 2020 crawls to a close, I’m sure many people will be keeping with the tradition of preparing some hope or goal they intend to carry with them into the coming year while reflecting on the lasting impacts of the year departing. I can imagine after the very unusual toll 2020 has taken on all of us, a few more distinctive resolutions and reflections will be made alongside the typical list of starting a new fitness journey, getting organized, or learning a new skill or hobby. 2020 has been particularly dark for many of us, but with a new calendar year comes new hope. When seeking hope amidst troubled times, I believe much can be gained from remembering that few struggles in this world are unprecedented. And so, I can think of a no more appropriate endeavor than to invoke the ghosts of New Year’s past by diving into our collections and observing the reflections and resolutions of previous years. Come in, and know our collections better, Readers! (Figuratively of course, we are still closed to the public for now.)

Our first New Year’s reflection comes from the Everett-Noble papers which include the diary of Alexander Hill Everett, brother to the famous Massachusetts orator, Edward Everett. In December of 1809, Alexander finds himself in Russia serving as secretary to John Quincy Adams. He writes:

This day brings the year to a close. On casting back a glance, I find it marked for me with events that will probably fix, fortunately or otherwise, the color of my life. As a matter of naked prudence, perhaps it was rather questionable whether I ought to harken such a step as to leave my country for so long a time and sacrifice for the present, the study of a profession. Hitherto, however, instead of repenting I have applauded myself more and more: I have placed myself in a way of distinction; it will only be unfortunate for me if my abilities are not adequate to support the situation.

Reader, have you made any “questionable” decisions this year or maybe taken a great risk? I can ascertain from the rest of this collection that Alexander’s “questionable” decision panned out nicely for him. He continued in the field of foreign diplomacy until his death. So, perhaps there is hope for you. Only time will tell. Keep going.

We move on to our next New Year’s reflection which I can only describe as a big “2020 Mood,” though it was actually written in 1816 which New England historians might recognize as “the year without a summer.” After spending the year in lockdown, I find that phrase to be all too relatable. This excerpt comes from the diary of Hannah Dawes Newcomb, a resident of Keene, N.H. She writes:

The New Year opens upon me with my feelings gloomily impressed. May God grant me strength of mind to endure his chastening with suitable firmness and humility & may it be consistent with his decrees to remove the difficulties which now await me.

Not all resolutions can be cheerful. While we can all be grateful to make it to another year, it can be hard to be hopeful when the “difficulties” of the previous year have no determined end in sight. May we all find the strength to push forward in hopes of happier times.

Many people this year have been forced apart from family and other loved ones. This is of course a burden that is relatable across time. If you find yourself in this predicament, perhaps you will find your own New Year’s hopes reflected in this 1862 letter from Richard Cary to his wife:

My dear wife,

Happy New Year to you & may this day twelve months see us once more together & settled down to a regular hum-drum Darby & Joan which sort of life I look upon now as the most desirable possible existence & may the country be quiet united & contented as we shall be if my hopes might come true.

At the time this letter was written, Richard Cary was serving as a captain in the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, Company G. I take no pleasure in telling you that his hopes did not come true. He was killed at the Battle of Cedar Mountain at the age of 26. Sobering, I know, but more than 300,000 people were permanently separated from their family members in the United States this year, many of them just as young. In this New Year, may we hold our loved ones closer and be so much kinder to one another.

Each of us has had to endure so much this year. But we did just that–endured–and we did it together as many have before us. Thank you for continuing to stand by us, the MHS, and each other as we’ve all learned to adapt and survive. My wish for the New Year is that we would all experience fewer moments of pure survival and more opportunities to thrive. I leave you with this last brief but all-encompassing New Year’s entry from the diary of Andrew Oliver who said simply, “Thus ends the year 1953 with its ups and downs!”

Happy New Year!

by Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

I don’t know about you, but just two days after the official start of winter and six days after Winter Storm Gail, I’m already dreaming of tropical climes. To whet my appetite, I turn to a fun old travel guide in the Massachusetts Historical Society’s collection, Appleton’s Illustrated Hand-book of American Winter Resorts; for Tourists and Invalids.

This small, attractive hardcover volume, only 138 pages long, is chock full of terrific illustrations and maps.

It was published in 1879 by D. Appleton and Co., a major New York publishing company run by five sons of founder Daniel Appleton. The company put out a number of targeted guidebooks like this; there’s one about summer resorts, too. In the front and back, you’ll find advertisements for hotels, banks, railroads, steamship companies, and, of course, other Appleton publications.

The book is divided into twelve sections: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Minnesota, Arkansas Hot Springs, Colorado, California, the Lower Mississippi, the West Indies, the Bermudas, and the Sandwich Islands. Sections include general descriptions; descriptions of major cities, towns, rivers, etc.; lists of hotels and boarding houses; and information on climate, history, and points of interest.

As you can tell from its unfortunate title, this book is targeted not only at recreational travelers, but also “invalids,” primarily tuberculosis patients, or “consumptives” in the vernacular of the time. Included are “all the facts as to climatic and local conditions” in each location, as well as testimonials by physicians and even mortality rates!

The largest section by far is the one on Florida, a popular destination for “those afflicted with pulmonary complaints.” The anonymous author waxes almost poetic about the state’s many rivers, including the St. Johns and the Ocklawaha. My favorite illustration, depicting Green Cove Springs, also appears in this section.

The guidebook contains some fascinating factoids that give us a snapshot of what vacations were like in 1879. Travel by train cost 2-3 cents per mile (more in the southern and western United States); steamboats were even cheaper; the going rate for first-class hotels was $4.00-$4.50 per day; and only gold and silver, not U.S. Treasury notes or National Bank bills, were legal tender in California. A train ticket from New York to San Francisco would run you $138.

Speaking of California, I particularly enjoyed the description of a quaint little town called Los Angeles.

Its present population is about 12,000, and the adobe buildings, of which it was originally composed, are fast giving way to larger and more imposing structures. It has a large and varied trade with the interior, and contains three banks, a Roman Catholic college, several public schools, a public library, three daily and two weekly newspapers, churches of the various denominations, and good hotels.

What other tips did the Appletons have for the resourceful tourist or “consumptive” in search of relief?

Our American climate is very changeable, and the traveler had better suffer at noonday from too much clothing than expose himself at night, in storms, or to sudden changes of temperature, with too little. One should wear woolen underclothing, both summer and winter, and always have a shawl or extra wrapper of some kind at hand.

Here’s hoping you are enjoying whatever weather you happen to be in!