Malden, Massachusetts

MALDEN, MASSACHUSETTS

“I know histhry isn’t thrue, Hinnissy, because it ain’t like what I see ivry day in Halsted Street. If any wan comes along with a histhry iv Greece or Rome that’ll show me th’ people fightin’, gettin’ dhrunk, makin’ love, gettin’ married, owin’ th’ grocery man an’ bein’ without hard coal, I’ll believe they was a Greece or Rome, but not befur.” — Dunne, Finley Peter, OBSERVATIONS BY MR. DOOLEY, New York, 1902

[Malden, in Massachusett’s Essex County, was named after the seaport community of Maldon, Essex, England.]

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Malden, Massachusetts HDT WHAT? INDEX

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11,500 BCE

Toward the end of the last Ice Age, most of what is now New England was still under an immense sheet of very slowly melting ice, like a mile in thickness, retreating from an edge that at one point had reached as far south as New Jersey. Vegetation was appearing on exposed surfaces: mainly tundra plants such as grasses, sedge, alders, and willows. NEW ENGLAND

However, nearly all areas of the globe had climates at least as warm and moist as today’s. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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10,500 BCE

In this “Paleo Period,” humans began to occupy the New England region sparsely, hunting mastodon and caribou. Spruce forests began to appear, followed by birch and pine. This period would last to about 8,000 BCE. NEW ENGLAND

The beginning of the Younger Dryas. Abrupt cooling in Europe and North America, return of near glacial conditions; in the Near East, an abrupt drought, leading to retreat to oases, possibly related to development of agriculture as a coping strategy. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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10,000 BCE

About 12,000 years ago, the end of the most recent Ice Age and the beginning of our current Interglacial Era. A glacial erratic was left lying in an esker in what would become Weymouth in New England.

Bone-tipped harpoons began to appear in Newfoundland, Iberia, and Central Equatorial Africa. The aboriginal inhabitants of Japan were manufacturing ceramic pottery, not for cooking but for storage of cosmetics and perfumes. New grasslands were springing up while many animal species were going extinct. These ecological changes were causing the people living along the banks of the world’s rivers to establish the first permanent horticultural (literally, “hand-farming”) settlements. We can note, in remains found in agricultural settlements in northeastern Africa, the appearance of small pox. According to one popular theory, early villages provided homes for the young, infirm, and elderly. The rebuttal to that theory is that hand-farming is more time- consuming and at higher risk from ecological or military disaster than either hunting or gathering. Invention of the bow and arrow. Dogs and reindeer were being domesticated. Regardless of why horticulture happened, its impact on the human race was profound, as over the next 2,800 generations the Earth’s human population would be increasing from 4,000,000 to 100,000,000.

In the Mojave Desert, a seed sprouted that would give rise to this creosote bush Larrea tridentata that is still alive (since the plant has been dying toward the center and sending out shoots outward, it is the diameter of its HDT WHAT? INDEX

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circle that reveals to us that it has now been alive in this same generation for 12,000 years):

“Hey, good enough for me. Why don’t you go away?” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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8,000 BCE

Little information is available for the New England region during the Early Archaic Period. We know that oaks, pitch pines, and beeches were beginning to flourish. As the glacier melted, it deposited scraped up erosional debris atop the bedrock. Streams stemming from the melting glaciers formed valleys such as the Mill Brook valley. Enormous buried blocks of ice would eventually be creating water-filled depressions in the landscape. These “kettle ponds” would include not only Walden Pond, Fair Haven Bay, and White Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, but also Spy Pond, the Mystic Lakes, and Fresh Pond in Cambridge. NEW ENGLAND

Walden

White

Fair Haven HDT WHAT? INDEX

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6,000 BCE

A stone projectile period has been found in the New England region, dating to this Middle Archaic period. Clearly, nomadic tribes of Paleo-Indians were moving into New England. Their spear points were made of flint imported from the valleys of the Mohawk River and Hudson River. They were traveling in dugout canoes along the coast of New England and following tributaries far inland. (At this point maize was beginning to be cultivated in Mexico. The flexible-shaft spear, thrown with a stone-weighted spear thrower now termed the “atl-atl,” was the common projectile.) NEW ENGLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

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4,000 BCE

During the Late Archaic period, humans were hunting game (caribou?) and marine mammals (seals, etc.), and fishing and gathering, in the region of New England. A warmer, drier climate had been encouraging the seeding of white pine, red pine, oak, and beech trees, which slowly had replaced the post-glacial jack pine, fir, and spruce that had been covering the area. NEW ENGLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

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3,000 BCE

The vegetation of what is now New England has become predominantly hardwood, the fresh growth attracting increasing numbers of white-tail deer, moose, black bear, beaver, and turkey. A new tribal people had been attracted to homestead in this environment, the “Late Archaic Indians,” builders of circular homes that ranged from 30 to 66 feet in diameter. NEW ENGLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1,700 BCE

From this point until about 700 BCE on the North American continent, during what we refer to as the “Terminal Archaic” period, there was manufacture and use of soapstone pots, and widespread trade connections. It is possible that a northward migration of Iroquoian-speaking peoples caused separation between eastern and central Algonkian-speaking peoples. NEW ENGLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

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700 BCE

During the Early Horticultural period encompassing what some call the Early and Middle Woodland Periods, a period which would last from this point until circa 1,000 CE, there was in the New England area an increased use of ceramics and, in some local areas on western Long Island, the beginnings of a corn/beans horticulture. Trade was widespread throughout the Eastern Woodlands. Shellfish and deer were important food resources. Shell beads and copper beads appeared. Tobacco and pipes became common. Chestnut trees were naturalized in the area. NEW ENGLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

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366 BCE

The temple to Concordia was erected in Rome. CONCORD HDT WHAT? INDEX

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300 BCE

New England natives began growing corn and producing clayware. This period is known as the Ceramic- Woodland period and the tribespeople are termed Algonquians. They constructed wigwams of woven mats and also long houses that might harbor several families. Sizable villages grew around cleared fields; stockades were often erected as a defense against neighboring tribes. NEW ENGLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1000 CE

There appears to have been some population shifting from southwestward, possibly caused by hostile conflict with Iroquoians. During this Late Woodland period there was widespread adoption of horticulture in southern New England. The Wampanoag who were encountered by the European intrusives of the 16th and early 17th centuries were in this phase of their culture.

NEW ENGLAND

During the Late Prehistoric tradition, several cultures arose in different parts of Ohio. People lived in large villages surrounded by a stockade wall. Sometimes they built their villages on a plateau overlooking a river. They grew different plants in their gardens. Maize and beans became the most important foods (squash, another important plant, had been being grown since the Late Archaic).

In what is now North Carolina, people of the Mississippian culture in what we describe as the Piedmont region, were continuing to construct earthwork mounds or add onto existing ones. In the five to seven centuries HDT WHAT? INDEX

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preceding the initial European contacts, this Mississippian culture would produce large, complex cities and maintain farflung regional trading networks. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1649

May 2, Wednesday (Old Style): There were enough white people settling at “Mystic Side” across from Charlestown on the northern bank of the Mystic River at the point for the General Court of the Bay Colony to justify the formation of a separate town.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Malden, Massachusetts HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1658

April 14, Wednesday (Old Style): Waldo Emerson’s great-great-great-great grandparents Phineas Upham and Ruth Wood were wed in Malden, Massachusetts.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Malden, Massachusetts HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1659

May 22, 1659: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-great grandfather Phineas Upham (Junior) was born in Malden, Massachusetts.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Malden, Massachusetts HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1662

The Reverend Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705) of Malden, Massachusetts put out a sermon ballad titled THE DAY OF DOOM. (This theological tract would be purchased by one out of every 35 white residents of New England.)

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Malden, Massachusetts HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1670

December 2, 1670: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-great-great-great grandmother Elizabeth Slade Upham died in Malden, Massachusetts.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

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1674

November 25, 1674: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-great-great grandmother Mary Hills Waite died in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1675

circa 1675: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-grandfather Joseph Waite was born in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1676

October 8, 1676: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-great-great grandfather Phineas Upham died in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1681

February 25, 1681: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-great-great-great grandfather John Upham died in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1692

1692: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-great grandfather Joseph Waite died in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1693

September 26, 1693: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-great-great grandfather John Waite died in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1695

January 18, 1695/6: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-great-great grandmother Ruth Wood Upham died in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1703

November 23, 1703: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-grandparents Phineas Upham and Tamesin Hill were married in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1707

1707/1708: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-grandfather Phineas Upham was born in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1709

September 17, 1709: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-grandmother Hannah Waite (Upham) (Cook) was born in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1720

October 1720: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-great grandfather, Deacon Phineas Upham, died in Malden, Massachusetts and was interred in the Old Burying Ground there. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1721

December 27, Wednesday (Old Style): Waldo Emerson’s great-grandparents, the Reverend Joseph Emerson and Mary Moody of Malden, Massachusetts, were wed. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1724

A ministry house (parsonage) was constructed in the vicinity of Malden, Massachusetts’s meetinghouse, across from Bell Rock. It would be occupied by the family of the Reverend Joseph Emerson and Madam Mary Moody Emerson (1702-1779) and their 13 children.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Malden, Massachusetts HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1725

April 9, 1725: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-grandfather Joseph Waite died in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1727

The majority of the parishioners of Malden, Massachusetts voted to move their meetinghouse from Bell Rock near the ferries to Boston, to a new site one quarter of a mile farther to the north, at the crossing of the Salem and Charlestown roads. Just four months after the decision to relocate the Malden meetinghouse came an earthquake, evidence of God’s displeasure. Thus would initiate some four decades of struggle among these townspeople, involving three separate cases that would reach the General Court of Massachusetts.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

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1734

May 6, 1734: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s grandmother Hannah Upham (Haskins) was born in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1735

The Reverend Joseph Emerson of Malden, Massachusetts bought a shay. (At one point it would overturn, endangering his wife Madam Mary Moody Emerson. Eventually he would dispose of this shay, to the Reverend Mr. White.)

March 20-28: On page 2 of the Boston Evening News-Letter appeared a report, submitted without commentary by the Reverend Joseph Emerson of Malden, Massachusetts and the Reverends Samuel Moody and Joseph “Handkerchief” Moody of York, that in Kittery, Massachusetts a 19-year-old had been baking three identically made loaves of “Indian bread,” but when she removed these loaves from the oven she discovered that one of her three had become “exactly the colour of a Blood Pudding.” Obviously, this was being considered by the three reverends to be a sign granted to them, of the Last Time. Those who have eyes to see, let them see; those who have ears to hear, let them hear; and if you have eyes to see and will not see and ears to hear and will not hear, then to Hell with you. [W]hen Joseph Emerson and the two Moodies bore witness to a woman’s discovery of a millennial sign in her loaf of blood- colored bread, they were declaring females capable of receiving messages from God. They may also have been fending off alternative readings of the event as witchcraft or sanction for independent prophecy. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1738

July 17, 1738: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-grandfather Phineas Upham died of throat distempter in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1740

The Reverend George Whitefield preached in Malden, Massachusetts at the request of the Reverend Joseph “Handkerchief” Moody. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1744

The Reverend George Whitefield preached in Malden, Massachusetts at the request of the Reverend Joseph “Handkerchief” Moody. He found the Reverend Moody still afflicted with his Melancholy. Whitefield said that Moody resembled Holy Job, and recorded that often he would say “Look and learn, look and learn.” The man was evidently attempting to turn his personal affliction in the direction of cautionary teaching. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1745

The Reverend George Whitefield was preaching in Malden, Massachusetts at the request of the Reverend Joseph “Handkerchief” Moody.

His majesty directed that no houses should be erected but on farms of one acre and a half in front by 40 in depth. The consequence has been that the population of Canada has been always kept confined and thickly settled, and the pernicious law of subdivision of property has had a tendency to weaken instead of strengthen families.

Cape Breton was this year taken by Great Britain. The Papist stronghold of Louisburg in Canada was destroyed and the Reverend Samuel Moody, an ancestor of Ralph Waldo Emerson, using a consecrated ax, chopped HDT WHAT? INDEX

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down their Cross outside their Cape Breton chapel.

His son Joseph, “Handkerchief,” had remained behind and was leading the York congregation in a day of fasting and prayer. At one point in his prayers, Handkerchief made an announcement of military victory, and when the troops would return, they would indeed confirm that they had received the surrender of Louisburg’s HDT WHAT? INDEX

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French garrison at just about that hour.1

A JOURNAL OF THE TAKING OF CAPE-BRETON, PUT INTO METRE BY L.G., ONE OF THE SOLDIERS OF THE EXPEDITION:

CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

1. On June 28, in 1995, would take place the first joint venture in the United States between the Canadian and US park services, a commemoration of the siege at Louisbourg which occurred in the year 1745. The exhibit was titled “New England and the Struggle for World Empire and is at Boston National Historical Park at the Charlestown Navy Yard, next to the USS Constitution. Parks Canada, (Atlantic Region) and the U.S. National Park Service in cooperation with a consortium of New England historical institutions presented this exhibit. The exhibit presented the fact that, 250 years ago, Royal Governor William Shirley (whose home is now a museum on Shirley Street in Roxbury) organized an expedition of New Englanders to attack the mightiest French fort in North America, the Fortress Louisbourg. The New Englanders won the day. While colonists had engaged in successful military operations prior to this, the capture of Louisbourg represented the first time that American arms successfully challenged and significantly affected the affairs of European powers. In 1826, the developers of Beacon Hill would name this elegant section of Boston after said important historical event. Today, the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historical Site is North America’s largest historical reconstruction. Located on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, it faithfully depicts what life was like for the French colonists of 1744. The Parks Services of both Canada and the USA used the occasion of the 250th anniversary to expand the awareness of Boston’s visitors and residents about life in colonial times. The exhibit featured an impressive collection of artifacts, photos, portraits, and models. Strawberry Bank in Portsmouth New Hampshire staged a “send off” on July 8-9, 1995 for soldiers in period costumes who would take part in a Grand Encampment in Louisbourg, and The Shirley Eustis House, 33 Shirley Street in Roxbury, conducted a symposium. Louisbourg hosted numerous activities including an Acadian festival and a Grand Encampment with over 1,300 historical re-enactors attending from across Canada and the United States, which includes a visit of the tall ships. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1752

March 12, 1752: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s grandparents John Haskins and Hannah Upham were wed in Malden, Massachusetts.

One of his great-grandfathers, the Reverend Joseph Emerson, officiated at this wedding. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1765

Did this occur before 1765? Recalling the Reverend Joseph Emerson of Malden, Massachusetts, his great grandfather, the son of Edward Emerson, Esq. of Newburyport MA and the father of William Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson once mentioned in his journal that:

I used often to hear that when William, son of Joseph, was yet a boy walking before his father to church, on a Sunday, his father checked him, “William, you walk as if the earth was not good enough for you.” “I did not know it, sir,” he replied with the utmost humility. This is one of the household anecdotes in which I have found a relationship. ’Tis curious but the same remark was made to me, by Mrs Lucy Brown, when I walked one day under her windows here in Concord. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1766

1766: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-grandfather Phineas Upham died in North Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1767

July 13, Monday: The Reverend Joseph Emerson died and would be buried in Malden, Massachusetts.2

2. All his life this great-grandfather of Waldo Emerson is said to have prayed every night that none of his descendants would ever be rich. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1768

April 24, 1768: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-great-grandmother Tamesin Hill Upham died in Malden, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1770

Fall: The Reverend George Whitefield died in Newburyport MA after preaching in York and Malden. His next HDT WHAT? INDEX

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preaching had been scheduled to be in Concord. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Phillis Wheatley’s “An Elegiac Poem on the Death of George Whitefield,” would be published in America and in England.

Hail, happy saint, on thine immortal throne, Possest of glory, life, and bliss unknown; We hear no more the music of thy tongue, Thy wonted auditories cease to throng. Thy sermons in unequall’d accents flow’d, And ev’ry bosom with devotion glow’d; Thou didst in strains of eloquence refin’d Inflame the heart, and captivate the mind. Unhappy we the setting sun deplore, So glorious once, but ah! it shines no more. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Behold the prophet in his tow’ring flight! He leaves the earth for heav’n’s unmeasur’d height, And worlds unknown receive him from our sight. There Whitefield wings with rapid course his way, And sails to Zion through vast seas of day. Thy pray’rs, great saint, and thine incessant cries Have pierc’d the bosom of thy native skies. Thou moon hast seen, and all the stars of light, How he has wrestled with his God by night. He pray’d that grace in ev’ry heart might dwell, He long’d to see America excell; He charg’d its youth that ev’ry grace divine Should with full lustre in their conduct shine; That Saviour, which his soul did first receive, The greatest gift that ev’n a God can give, He freely offer’d to the num’rous throng, That on his lips with list’ning pleasure hung. “Take him, ye wretched, for your only good, “Take him ye starving sinners, for your food; “Ye thirsty, come to this life-giving stream, “Ye preachers, take him for your joyful theme; “Take him my dear Americans, he said, “Be your complaints on his kind bosom laid: “Take him, ye Africans, he longs for you, “Impartial Saviour is his title due: “Wash’d in the fountain of redeeming blood, “You shall be sons, and kings, and priests to God.” Great Countess, we Americans revere Thy name, and mingle in thy grief sincere; New England deeply feels, the Orphans mourn, Their more than father will no more return. But, though arrested by the hand of death, Whitefield no more exerts his lab’ring breath, Yet let us view him in th’ eternal skies, Let ev’ry heart to this bright vision rise; While the tomb safe retains its sacred trust, Till life divine re-animates his dust. The “Old Manse” of Concord was at this point being built for the Reverend William Emerson and Madam Phoebe Bliss Emerson, who were residing (for four years) in Grandmother Phebe Walker Bliss’s Block House home in Concord.3 Eventually the grandmother would also come to reside at this new manse.

The grandfather, the Reverend Daniel Bliss, was already deceased as of 1764, six years prior to the house’s construction, and could never have entered the structure — Nathaniel Hawthorne’s perfervid imagination to the contrary notwithstanding.

It was at Madam’s preference that the rooms in the manse were so tiny, for Mary Moody Emerson would inform Ellen Emerson that “it was my mother’s fault”: My father built it just according to her ideas, and she used to say “she was tired of great barns of rooms,” so he had all the rooms made little boxes to please her.

3. The “Block House” was so called because it had served as the community’s garrison house during “King Phillip’s War”. It stood between the cemetery and the courthouse on the Milldam, about a hundred yards from the town meetinghouse. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1776

May 27, Monday: The occupants of Malden, Massachusetts declared their independence from the crown of Britain. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1811

May 12, Sunday: William Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s father, died at the age of 42. Later, the son recollected only that his father was harsh with him, for instance forcing him to dip in the salt water of the ocean when he was six to cure a skin condition he had acquired. Emerson entered Boston Latin School at eight years of age. Notice that the following account is off by a day: “His HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, a posthumous publication, and the Massachusetts Historical Collections, Vol. I. p. 256, (Second Series) contain full notices of his character, to which the reader is referred.”

WILLIAM E MERSON [of Concord], only son of the Rev. William Emerson, was born May 6, 1769, and graduated [at Harvard College] in 1789. He was ordained at Harvard May 23, 1792, but was dismissed on being called to a greater field of usefulness, and was installed over the First Church in Boston, October 16, 1799, where he obtained a distinguished reputation for talents, literary acquirements and piety. He died May 11, 1811, aged 42. His History of the Church, a posthumous publication, and the Massachusetts Historical Collections, Vol. I. p. 256, (Second Series) contain full notices of his character, to which the reader is referred. Four of his sons, William, Ralph Waldo, Edward Bliss, and Charles Chauncey, were graduated at Harvard College with distinguished rank.4

I might as well record this material here as anywhere: At some point during Waldo’s early boyhood, his Aunt Mary Moody Emerson took him and his younger brother Charles Chauncy Emerson to Malden, Massachusetts and showed the boys the grave of their great-grandfather Joseph Emerson who had died in 1767. Polly later would inform Ellen Emerson that “Your father ... was a little boy then, and skipped about among the graves.”

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 12th of 5th Mo// Silent meetings — In the forenoon my mind was much tried with roving, but in the Afternoon a little more settledness was experienced - O Williams & I went out to Sam’l Thurstons & took tea & spent the evening — —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

4. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1814

August 24, Wednesday: Viscount Castlereagh arrived at Paris, where he would be meeting with King Louis XVIII and Talleyrand before traveling on to Vienna.

As part of a conflict that was essentially a continuation of the American Revolution by way of a dispute over the seas and over the border of Canada, on this day and the following one a British army defeated hastily assembled defenders of Washington DC at Bladensburg, Maryland, just north of the capital. The British would go on to burn Washington, including the White House and most of the 3,076 books and 53 maps, charts, and plans of the Library of Congress, along with paintings of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette by Madame Vigee Lebruin. They would also put the chambers of the House and the Senate in Washington DC to the torch — but beware, it is sheer mythology that the books were used as kindling for the fire in the legislative chambers.5

Waldo Emerson would reminisce in his journal in about April or May of 1856 about a British-invasion-of- Boston scare that had occurred in about this period of his childhood:6

I have but one military recollection in all my life. In 1813 or 1814, all Boston, young & old, turned out to build the fortifications on Noddle’s Island; and, the Schoolmaster at the Latin School announced to the boys, that, if we wished, we might all go on a certain day to work on the Island. I went with the rest in the ferry boat, & spent a summer day; but I cannot remember that I did any kind of work. I remember only the pains we took to get water in our tin pails, to relieve our intolerable thirst. I am afraid not valuable effect of my labor remains in the existing defences.

5.There is a patriotic or accommodative story in which the invading British army is persuaded not to burn the Library of Congress, by being reminded of the ignominy of the burning of the Library of Alexandria in antiquity. This story sacrifices historical accuracy to patriotism or to accommodationism. Contrast this with another story which has a much greater likelihood of having been the truth, that the British were retaliating to the 1812 burning of the Canadian congressional library in York (Toronto) by an American expeditionary force. 6. We do not know whether Emerson was referring here to Head Master William Bigelow or to his successor Benjamin Apthorp Gould, a senior at Harvard College, for during 1814 after nine trying years Head Master Bigelow was being replaced in an attempt to restore order and scholarship (many features of the Boston Latin School of today –among them the “misdemeanor mark” and the practice of declamation– would be initiated during this disciplinary period.

I (Austin Meredith) have my own recollections similar to this, from World War II in San Diego CA. Have you seen the movie “1943”? –It is exceedingly accurate to the spirit of the times, while the necessary task of routing all Americans of Japanese ancestry into the new concentration camps in the inland desert was still going on, and the utter cooperation of the civilian (white) population, real Americans, was vitally needed by our government authorities. As a 6-year-old my parents had me in a class digging lines of foxholes across a football field, and marching around the parade ground of a religious school where my father was Chaplain, named Brown Military Academy, with a wooden rifle. I lost my first baby tooth when I Left-Ho’d in formation when I should have Right- Ho’d –because the butt of the “rifle” of the boy next to me in formation slapped me up alongside the head– and I sat down on the parade ground and began to cry and was afraid I was going to be courts-martialed. The vicious little yellow Japs were going to invade, the Hearst newspapers were reporting that already they might be lurking offshore in their submarines, just out of sight, and in a port city on the Pacific Ocean we were on the front lines and we needed to be utterly ready to defend our soil with our blood. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Because of the perceived danger that the English navy would besiege Boston, the Emerson family then moved to Concord. Ralph Waldo attended the wooden schoolhouse in Concord square. He recited not only in school but also from the top of the sugar barrel in Deacon John White’s store nearby. Here is a silhouette of the “pilgrim profile” of Emerson’s aunt Mary Moody Emerson, who would loom large in his life though she stood at most 5 feet 0 inches tall, as she appeared in her youth, probably before her return to Malden MA:

THE DEACONS OF CONCORD Joshua Barney was wounded and captured at Bladensburg, Maryland. HDT WHAT? INDEX

TRAVELED MUCH IN CONCORD MA HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1843

September 26, Tuesday: Waldo Emerson wrote in his journal:

This morning Charles Lane left us after a two days’ visit. He was dressed in linen altogether, with the exception of his shoes, which were lined with linen, & he wore no stockings. He was full of methods of an improved life: valued himself chiefly just now on getting rid of the animals; thinks there is no economy in using them on a farm. He said, that they could carry on their Family at Fruitlands in many respects better, no doubt, if they wished to play it well. He said that the clergy for the most part opposed the Temperance Reform, and conspicuously this simplicity in diet, because they were alarmed, as soon as such nonconformity appeared, by the conviction that the next question people would ask, would be, “Of what use are the clergy?”

Regarding the Reverend Joseph Emerson of Malden, Massachusetts, one of Waldo’s great-grandfathers, the son of Edward Emerson, Esq. of Newburyport and the father of William Emerson, Waldo would mention during the next few months in his journal that:

TRAVELED MUCH IN CONCORD MA

1855

June 5, Tuesday: Herbert Wendell Gleason was born in Malden, Massachusetts, 1st child of Herbert Gleason and Elizabeth Upton Gleason.

June 5. P.M . — To Clamshell by river. Yellow Bethlehem-star in prime. Aphyllon, or orobanche, well out apparently several days. Nuphar Kalmiana budded above water. Green-briar flower out apparently two or three days. Low blackberry out in low ground. That very early (or in winter green radical leaf) plant by ash is the Myosotis laxa, open since the 28th of May, say June 1st . Ranunculus reptans, say two days out, river being very low. Common cress well out along river. Side-flowering sandwort apparently three days out in Clamshell flat meadow. Some oxalis done, say two or three days, on ditch bank. Ranunculus repens in prime . Yellow clover well out some clays. Flowering ferns, reddish-green, show on meadows. Green oak-balls . Walking along the upper edge of the flat Clamshell meadow, a bird, probably a song sparrow (for I saw two chipping about immediately after), flew up from between my feet, and I soon found its nest remarkably concealed. It was under the thickest of the dry river wreck, with an entry low on one side, full five inches long and very obscure . On looking close I detected the eggs from above by looking down through some openings in the wreck about as big as sparrows' eggs, through which I saw the eggs, five in number. I never saw the nest so perfectly concealed . I am much interested to see how Nature proceeds to heal the wounds where the turf was stripped off this meadow. There are large patches where nothing remained but pure black mud, nearly level or with slight hollows like a plate in it. This the sun and air had cracked into irregular polygonal figures, a foot, more or less, in diameter. The whole surface of these patches here is now covered with a short, soft, and pretty dense moss- like vegetation springing up and clothing it. The little hollows and tic cracks are filled with a very dense growth of reddish grass or sedge, about one inch high, the growth in the cracks making pretty regular figures as in a carpet, while the intermediate spaces are very evenly but much more thinly covered with minute sarothra and whitish Gnaphalium uliginosum. Thus the wound is it once scarred over. Apparently the seeds of that grass were heavier and were washed into the hollows and cracks . Is it likely that the owner has sprinkled seed here? [No.] HDT WHAT? INDEX

TRAVELED MUCH IN CONCORD MA

1877

January 31, Wednesday: Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the practicality of the box telephone by means of a phonecall placed from the home of Mayor Converse in Malden, Massachusetts, to the offices of the mayor’s shoe company on Converse Street in Boston.

1899: Corey, Deloraine Pendre. THE HISTORY OF MALDEN, MASSACHUSETTS, 1633-1785. 2 volumes, 870 pages, illustrated, maps, index, 1899; Facsimile Reprint, Bowie MD: Heritage Books, 1992

1975: Randall, Ruth Kimball. MALDEN, FROM PRIMITIVE PAST TO PROGRESSIVE PRESENT. Malden Historical Society. Caanan NH: Phoenix Publishing, 1975

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Malden, Massachusetts HDT WHAT? INDEX

TRAVELED MUCH IN CONCORD MA

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2006. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 20 Miles Avenue, Providence RI 02906. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: October 6, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

TRAVELED MUCH IN CONCORD MA

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.