“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
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project New Hampshire HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1600
By this point at least, Passaconaway (“Child of the Bear”) had become headman of the Penacook. He lived at the top of the Pawtucket Falls in what would become Lowell in what would become Massachusetts.
At this point, upstream at what would become Concord in what would become New Hampshire, there were about 2,000 English settlers.
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
New Hampshire “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1614
Captain John Smith, sailing along the New England coast, wrote back to England that: Here should be no landlords to rack us with high rents, or extorted fines to consume us. Here every man may be a master of his own labor and land in a short time. The sea there is the strangest pond I ever saw. What sport doth yield a more pleasant content and less hurt or charge than angling with a hook, and crossing the sweet air from isle to isle over the silent streams of a calm sea?
The Massachusett indigenes probably had experienced first contact with Europeans intrusives at an early date, perhaps as soon as John Cabot in 1497, but they are first mentioned specifically in surviving records by Captain Smith as he explored the coast of New England. At this point there may have been as many as 3,000 Massachuset tribalists living in 20 villages around Boston Bay, including along the Charles River (Quinobequin) and the Neponset River in eastern Massachusetts,1 but by the time the Pilgrims would arrive in 1620 fewer than 800 of these would be present. A series of three separate epidemics would strike between 1614 and 1617, destroying three out of every four in the original native population. Simultaneously, unidentified rival tribes from the north would be attacking the villages.
1. The name is from an Algonquian word meaning “at the range of hills.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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AN ACCOUNT OF TWO VOYAGES TO NEW-ENGLAND.
The people that inhabited this Countrey are judged to be of the Tartars called Samonids that border upon Moscovia, and are divided into Tribes; those to the East and North-east are called to the year of Christ 1673. Churchers and Tarentines, and Monhegans. To the South are the Pequets and Narragansets. Westward Connecticuts and Mowhacks. To the Northward Aberginians which consist of Mattachusets, Wippanaps and Tarrentines. The Pocanakets live to the Westward of Plimouth. Not long before the English came into the Countrey, happened a great mortality amongst them, expecially where the English afterwards planted, the East and Northern parts were sore smitten with the Contagion; first by the plague, afterwards when the English came by the small pox, the three Kingdoms or Sagamorships of the Mattachusets were very populous, having under them seven Dukedoms or petti- Sagamorships, but by the plague were brought from 30000 to From the year of the World From the year 300. There are not many now to the Eastward, the Pequots were destroyed by the English: the Mowhacks are about five hundred: Their speech a dialect of the Tartars, (as also is the Turkish tongue).
BY John Josselyn Gent.
CONTAGION HDT WHAT? INDEX
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There were six main bands of the Massachusett, under the following headmen: • Chickataubut (this band was divided into two groups, the Wampatuck and the Obatinnewat) • Nanepashemet (this band was divided into three groups, the Winnepurkit, the Wonohaquaham, and the Montowampate) • Manatahqua •Cato • Nahaton • Cutshamakin (or Cutshamequin, or Kutchamakin)
These Massachusett were living in the following villages: • Agawam • Conohasset • Magaehnak • Massachuset • Mattapoist • Mishawum • Mystic • Nahapassumkeck • Nasnocomacack • Natick •Neponset • Nonantum • Patuxent • Pocapawmet • Sagoquas • Saugus • Secacasaw (Seccasaw) • Topeent • Totant • Totheet • Waranock • Wessagusset • Winnisimmet HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Here is what their habitations most likely looked like. First, the bare frame of the weetu structure: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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As constructed for summer use: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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As constructed for winter use:
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 New Hampshire HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1616
There was in the Algonquian villages of what are now southern and central New Hampshire, northeastern Massachusetts, and southern Maine an epidemic of what is likely to have been measles or scarlet fever.
The American population between the Narragansett bay and the Saco River was reduced from an estimated 100,000 to 5,000. Since virtually every village of the Massachusett along this coast within 30 miles of the ocean, all the way from the region of Portland down to Cape Cod, quickly fell victim, there has been much speculation that the epidemic was the small pox and that it had been carried to the natives by their contact with the French sailors, either the ones who had died in the vicinity of the waters of Boston Harbor or the ones who had survived and been enslaved by the native Americans. “They died in heaps, as they lay in their houses; and the living that were able to shift for themselves would run away.”
The First Comers, coming across these piles of bones later, would term the places “a new found Golgotha.” Even years after this epidemic, “Their skulls and bones were found in many places lying still above the ground, where their houses and dwelling had been.” Historians generally do not credit that the epidemic must have been carried by these crewmen, citing the possibility of rats from this or another ship, and yet the historical estimate is that something like 19 out of every 20 humans along this coast had died during this outbreak. Meanwhile, a native war in Maine was desolating that region as well, so as the Pilgrims would arrive, they HDT WHAT? INDEX
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would discover that by means of a “wonderful plague” God had cleared a path for them.
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
New Hampshire “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1621
In the grant of land between the Naumkeag River and the Merrimack River in what is now New Hampshire to Captain John Mason (now known as the Masonian claim of 1621, awarded by a “Council of New England” established in Plymouth, County of Devon, in the name of King James I of England) there appeared a clause clearly having to do with Plum Island: “The great Isle, henceforth to be called, Isle of Mason, lying near or before the bay, harbour, or river of Agawam.”
We are told that the plumbs, which are found on Plumb Island, were plenty, many years since, in various parts of the town. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1623
A signal event in the history of Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Strawberry Banke was founded.
Under the authority of an English land-grant, Captain John Mason and others sent two groups of colonizers to establish fishing colonies at the mouth of the Piscataqua River. One of these expeditions, under the Scotchman David Thomson, erected salt-drying fish racks and a stone “factory” near the river’s mouth at a place they called Little Harbor or “Pannaway,” which has since become the town of Rye. The other expedition, under the fish-merchant brothers of London Edward Hilton and Thomas Hilton, set up on a neck of land eight miles to the north which they named Northam, afterwards to become Dover.
Sir Ferdinando Gorges’s son Robert Gorges was made Governor-General of New England (until he would give up and return to England in 1624). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1629
Captain John Mason and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who had in 1622 received a patent from the Council for New England for all the territory lying between the Merrimack and Kennebec rivers, at this point divided their grant along the Piscataqua River, with Captain Mason being assigned the southern portion.
This territory would be recharted as the Province of New Hampshire — it would include most of the southeastern part of the current state of that name plus portions of present-day Massachusetts that lie to the HDT WHAT? INDEX
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north of the Merrimack River.
They divided the Isles of Shoals between themselves. Captain Mason taking Londoner Island (Lunging Island), Star Island, and White Island, Sir Ferdinando taking Appledore Island, Cedar Island,2 Duck Island,3
2. Cedar Island, a small circular island in the Isles of Shoals about one-seventh of a mile in diameter, derived its name, apparently, from the few and scrappy cedar trees that had been noticed there by Captain John Smith in the early 17th Century. It is populated today by lobstermen’s families descended from early Shoaler fisherman. It is now connected by a government breakwater to Smuttynose Island and Star Island. Near it is Cedar Island Ledge. 3. Gorges and Mason most likely named Duck Island in the Isles of Shoals for its migrant waterbirds. It is about one-seventh of a mile long and one-seventh of a mile wide. It is surrounded by Jimmie’s Ledge, Shag Rock, Eastern Rocks, and Mingo Rock, and is closest to Old Henry Ledge. After being used by our government as a bombing target within a zone off-limits to the general public, what is left of the island and its ledges has become the private property of the Star Island Corporation and is maintained as a wildlife refuge. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Malaga (Malagoe) Island, and what Thoreau would refer to as “Hog Island” (Smuttynose Island).
In this year Sir Ferdinando and his nephew established Maine’s first court system.
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
November 7, day (Old Style): Grant of Hampshire to Captain John Mason. READ THE FULL TEXT
November 17, day (Old Style): Grant of Laconia to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason by the Council for New England. READ THE FULL TEXT
New Hampshire “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1666
Summer: There was an exchange of native raids, with the Mohawk hitting the Penacook while the Sokoki and Kennebec attacked Mohawk villages. From the standpoint of the Pennacook, Sokoki, and Abenaki, it was bad enough that the English had become allied with the Iroquois but, even worse, the Boston traders abandoned them to move west to Albany and trade with their enemies.
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project New Hampshire HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1674
Concord, New Hampshire’s population was about 1,250. HISTORY OF CONCORD NH
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project New Hampshire HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1675
The sovereign council of Canada was this year increased to 9 members and its powers extended.
At the beginning of King Phillip’s uprising, only the Nashua and Wachusett (most of whom, oddly enough, had converted to Christianity) were involved in the fighting. Two of the Penacook subtribes joined Metacom’s alliance but most resettled in Canada at Saint-François-du-Lac, while some resettled at Schaghticoke in Rensselaer County, New York. However, to keep some of the Pennacook neutral, their headman Wannalancet was advising many of them to travel toward the north. Refusing English demands in the fall of 1675 to have his people return from Canada, Wannalancet withdrew to the upper Merrimack and spent the winter at Lake Winnipesaukee. During the winter of 1675/1676, French Jesuits would encounter a band of Pennacook as far away as the shore of Lake Huron. “KING PHILLIP’S WAR” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1719
According to a New England story, at this point there were still a few isolated villages of Penacook along the upper reaches of the Merrimack River when the 1st potatoes in the continental mainland were planted at Londonderry Common Field (Derry) in New Hampshire.
Spring: The first settlers of Derry arrived, led by Reverend MacGregor of Londonderry, Ireland. They called their settlement not Derry but Nutfield, New Hampshire. They immediately planted the potato seedstock they had brought with them — these were the 1st potatoes to be planted in the soil of what would become the United States of America, and the 1st potatoes to be planted in the entire New World by white intrusives rather than by indigenous red Americans. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1727
May 20, Saturday (Old Style): The Bow grant in what is now New Hampshire. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1728
August 6, Tuesday (Old Style): The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay colony granted six square miles of land in New Hampshire to the survivors, and the heirs of nonsurvivors, of Captain John Lovewell’s merry crew of race murderers. This grant would initially be known as “Lovewell’s Town,” but would almost immediately rename itself “Suncook” and eventually would be deemed to constitute “Pembroke.”
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
New Hampshire “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1730
December 9, Wednesday (Old Style): The Suncook, New Hampshire Proprietors drew for their first division of lots. The smallest size awarded was 40 acres of the very primest real estate, and all other award portions made up of somewhat less desirable real estate were so constructed as to be of a value approximately equal to these, regardless of their number of acres. Francis Doyen (one of Captain John Lovewell’s merry crew of race murderers) and his spouse had been the initial white inhabitants to winter in the township (1728/1729), and they may have been the initial permanent settlers. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1736
The members of the Congregational church of Pembroke, New Hampshire chose the Reverend Aaron Whittemore as their pastor. (Eventually the Congregational and Presbyterian congregations of Pembroke would combine.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1737
March 1, Tuesday (1736, Old Style): The Reverend Aaron Whittemore was ordained at Pembroke, New Hampshire. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1740
Thomas Hutchinson went to England to represent Massachusetts in a boundary dispute against New Hampshire. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1741
Although “New Hampshire” had been organized as a crown colony on October 7, 1691, and King William and Queen Mary had signed its charter on May 14, 1692, up to this point the only effective government had been the one in Boston, of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. At this point, however a separate colonial governor was appointed, Benning Wentworth. The large oblong of land that now constitutes Vermont and New Hampshire, with its settlements such as the one known then as “Upper Ashuelot” and later as “Keene,” would continue the gradual process of separation from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1746
August 15, Friday (Old Style): A small patrol of Captain Daniel Ladd’s New Hampshire militia was surprised by a war party of pro-French Indians and Canadian voyageurs, in New York near Lake Champlain’s Crown Point. Another patrol arrives to find five mutilated bodies and one survivor, learn that two others had been carried off. Ladd headed to his base in Rumford for replacements. He encountered 14-year-old Robert Rogers there. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1747
April: At about this point, the town of Upper Ashuelot, New Hampshire, abandoned by its white colonists, was put to the torch by the native Americans, except for four buildings which somehow escaped attention. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1752
William Murray, solicitor general to the King of England, granted the area now known as Vermont to the New Hampshire colony, disappointing the claims of the New York colony.
By some accounts the charter of the town of Walpole, New Hampshire dates to this year: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1753
The torched settlement in New Hampshire previously known as “Upper Ashuelot” was regranted to its inhabitants, by Governor Benning Wentworth, and was renamed as Keene in honor of Sir Benjamin Keene (the English minister to Spain and a West Indies trader, who presumably didn’t mind). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1759
October 31, day: A detachment of Rogers’ Rangers led by Major Rogers himself reached the safety of Fort Number 4, New Hampshire after their raid on St. Francis, Quebec, and sent provisions north to others of their number.
During this late October period, John Bartram and John Bartram, Jr. were botanizing in the Shenandoah Valley and the blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. BOTANIZING
November 1, Thursday: Incorporation of Pembroke was granted, “authorizing the levying and collecting such Province Tax as shall be imposed upon them by law as any other Town or Parish in this Province.” On the passage of the act of incorporation, the Plantation of Suncook in the Commonwealth of New Hampshire ceased to exist and the Town of Pembroke took its place. Pembroke’s first company of men, under the command of Captain Daniel Moore, reported to Colonel John Stark and fought in the battle of Bunker Hill on the 17th of June, 1775. Several other Pembroke volunteer companies fought during the course of this historic conflict. Town companies of Pembroke recruits, commanded by both Captains Andrew Buntin and Samuel Connor, reported to General Sullivan at Winter Hill, Charlestown, Massachusetts. About 1807, three men came to Pembroke: Dr. Abel Blanchard, Reverend Abraham Burnham and Boswell Stevens, Esq. Dr. Blanchard was not a person of good health and began to fail about 1817. He expired March 15, 1818. In his will dated January 15, 1818, Dr. Blanchard (having no family of his own and after making bequests to his friends) left the residue of his property to found a “public school or academy in Pembroke.” The school (although for many years called “Blanchard Academy”) was incorporated June 25, 1818, as Pembroke Academy. Fire has destroyed the original buildings, but the Academy continues to be a vital institution in Pembroke. Between 1850-1860, Pembroke had a influx of French-Canadians that worked in the many well-established mills. On January 11, 1885, the French-Canadians formed an association, “Le Cercle Dramatique Et Litteraire”, for mutual instruction and amusement. They produced plays and fostered artistic awareness. On September 9, 1888, a library to include French and English works was started, and accounted for about 600 volumes. The French presence in Pembroke enriched the town culturally and helped to make it a unique place in which to live in central New Hampshire. Shortly after the Massachusetts 6th Regiment passed through Baltimore on April 19, 1861, the New Hampshire Second Regiment followed with fourteen of its complement being soldiers from Pembroke. Pembroke soldiers serving in the Civil War (Rebellion) 1861-1865 numbered 181, of which 32 were killed while serving in the army. The first census taken in Pembroke in the year 1767, HDT WHAT? INDEX
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is as follows: 49 unmarried and 85 married men between 16 and 60 years of age; 16 men over 60; 134 boys under 16; 97 married and 169 unmarried females; 5 widows, and 2 slaves. Total population of 557. By 1800, the turn of the century, Pembroke had 982 citizens. In 1850, the census taken shows a count of 1,735 individuals, and by 1890 the population had swollen to 3,172 townspeople. Return to top The first mills built in Suncook were those of John Coffrin/ Cochran (spelling) erected in approximately 1738, just east of the present Main Street Bridge where it crosses the Suncook River. They were understandably a saw mill and a grist mill, both a prerequisite for the Suncook Grant to become effective. The early fulling mill (processing of woolen cloth), was constructed in 1773 close to the saw and grist mill, owned by Samuel Daniell. After having passed through several hands, the fulling mill was sold to the Pembroke Cotton Factory Company. There were also paper mills, (one of which was suspected of producing paper for making counterfeit money) operated along the Suncook River from the late 1700s to the early 1800s. Many of these old buildings have been razed or destroyed by fire. With the burning of Webster Manufacturing mill in 1982, only the Emerson mill is still standing. In Suncook, the Chelmsford Glass Company established the Pembroke Glass Works in 1839 on the west end of Buck Street (later known as Glass Street) to produce crown window glass. Crown glass resulted in the outer edges being used as window glass and the center being called “bulls-eye” glass. The Chelmsford Glass Company ceased operations in Pembroke in 1850, due in part to the high cost of transporting quality sand from long distances, the discovery and use of natural gas as a fuel in the production of glass, and the lowering of the foreign glass import tariff. The textile industry as a major employer in the local area lasted until the early 20th century, when much of New England textile manufacturing went to the southern part of the United States. The three better known mills in town were the Pembroke Mills, Webster Manufacturing, and China Manufacturing, all manufacturing print cloth. The second most profitable industry in Pembroke was that of producing bricks, with the primary employers and greater profits coming from the textile industry. The clay extracted along the Merrimack River provided bricks for home and commercial construction in the local area. Brick making existed primarily during the late 19th and mid 20th centuries. Other sites were located on the Soucook River, the northwest side of Suncook River at Buck Street, and Buck Street on the southeast side of the river, to mention a few. Railroads and light rail lines played an important part in the history of Pembroke. In 1852, the Portsmouth to Concord Railroad started with a station in Pembroke. The Suncook Valley Railroad was completed in 1869. Later, in the 20th century, the junction of Pembroke St. and Whittemore Rd. was known as Hobbs Corner. Hobbs Corner was the turn-off for the trolley running from Pembroke Street onto Whittemore Road, across the Merrimack River and on to Concord, New Hampshire. The trolley serviced HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Concord and towns south to Manchester, NH from about 1902 until 1927 at which time buses took over. The oldest cemetery in Pembroke is the Pembroke Street Cemetery, established circa 1740. The Reverend Aaron Whittemore, first minister of Suncook, is buried there. Other cemeteries of interest are: Pembroke Hill Cemetery, North Pembroke Cemetery, Richardson Cemetery and Buck Street Cemetery. The oldest house in Pembroke is claimed to be the one owned by Mrs. Vesta M. Abbott. In a deed of 1764, Benjamin Thompson deeded to Nathaniel Thompson about one acre of land on the south side of Meeting House Brook. “Also a house standing on the northwest side of the brook.” This dwelling is presently known as the Crafts’ home on Pembroke Street. The Kimball Tavern, built in 1780, was a stage stop on the old Chester Turnpike (Pembroke Street) where the teams of horses were changed for fresh ones, and also served as a tavern kept by David Kimball. In the 1920s, the Kimball Tavern was operated as a rooming house with prices ranging from $1.00 and up per room. This tavern was also used as part of the underground railroad, sheltering slaves on their way to Canada. The present Richard Diehl home on Dudley Hill Road was also part of the underground railroad. The shelter for the slaves was located in the home, reached by a trap door in the attic. The Town-House (poor house) was built in 1811. At a meeting held July 6, 1813, the Town of Pembroke voted to build a “pound” of stone at “the corner of Mr. Lakeman’s Pasture by the town- house”, and raise $147.50 for that purpose. Christopher Osgood bid off the contract to build it at $135.00. Remains of the pound can be seen at the corner of Fourth Range Road and Pembroke Hill Road. The Fiske Tavern is noted as the place where General Lafayette passed the night when traveling from Boston to Concord in 1825. After Mr. Fiske’s death in 1826, it continued to be used as a tavern for many years. Pembroke Town Hall was originally built in 1840 and was used as a school, lecture hall and gymnasium for 26 years. This historic building burned in 1965. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1764
Jeremy Belknap moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to teach school and to study theology under the Reverend Samuel Haven (Harvard College Class of 1749). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1765
There had been much dispute as to whether the white settlement at what had originally been Penacook on the Merrimack River was to be considered to be under the jurisdiction of New Hampshire authorities, or under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts authorities. Much depended on this not only in the halls of the respective state governments but also locally, where a decision one way or the other would mean that the claims to real property of one group or another could be held to be spurious. The town changed its name, again, this time to “Concord,”4 with the pious hope that such a name would prevent local whites from coming to blows with one HISTORY OF CONCORD NH
another. It was not that the local whites lacked a common enemy which could bring them together, for they were united in the hatred and distrust they felt toward persons of the Roman Catholic faith.5 Those people are engaged in a secret conspiracy to control the planet, and if we let down our guard for an instant they will eat our lunch. There was a restrictive covenant in effect, that no-one could purchase local land or property without the permission of the entire community, and the explanation was that this restrictive covenant was intended to “keep out the Irish,” except we may note that being “Irish” in this context, and being kept out, had little to do with originating in Ireland and a whole lot to do with one’s religious persuasion. ANTI-CATHOLICISM
4. It had been called, for instance, “Rumford.” 5. In point of fact, it would not become legal for Catholics to hold high public office in New Hampshire until 1877. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1767
Jeremy Belknap began his ministry in Dover, New Hampshire, where he would spend two decades at the Congregational Church. He married, and purchased a house in Dover.
The 1st summer resort in America, the summer home of Royal Governor John Wentworth, was constructed at Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1769
The Reverend Jeremy Belknap began to serve as a secretary to the convention of New Hampshire ministers. This would continue until 1787. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1770
July 16, day: A notice of an insect infestation appeared on page 3 of The New-Hampshire Gazette: Hartford, July 16. For about 10 days past, there has increased and prevailed in this and some of the Towns, such Multitudes of a Kind of Brownish Streaked Worm, as have been very distructive to the Fruits of the Earth. They frequently appear in Swarms as to almost cover the Surface of the Earth in some places, and feed greedily on all kinds of herbs that comes in their way, whether in Gardens or Fields, especially the latter, where they make such a waste among the Grass as threatens a great Diminution if not almost the total Destruction of whole Crops. ‘Tis observed that the General Course is to the Westward. And we hear that the same kind of Vermine, do also abound in Distant parts of the Country both North and South. The Reverend Grant Powers (1784-1841) would collect eyewitness reports of this 1770 insect infestation:6 In the summer of 1770, this whole section of country was visited by an extraordinary calamity, such a one as this country never experienced before or since, beyond what I shall here specify. It was an army of worms, which extended from Lancaster, N.H., to Northfield, in Massachusetts. They began to appear the latter part of July, 1770, and continued their ravages until September. The inhabitants denominated them the “Northern Army,” as they seemed to advance from the north- west, and to pass east and south, although I do not learn that they ever passed the high lands between the Connecticut and Merrimack Rivers. They were altogether innumerable for multitude. Dr. Burton, of Thetford, Vt.,7 told me that he had seen whole pastures so covered that he could not put down his finger in a single spot, without placing it upon a worm. He said, he had seen more than ten bushels in a heap. They were unlike any thing which the present generation have ever seen. There was a stripe upon the back like black velvet: on either side a yellow stripe from end to end; and the rest of the body was brown. They were sometimes seen not larger than a pin; but in their maturity, they were as long as a man’s finger, and proportionably large in circumference. They appeared to be in great haste except when they halted to devour their food. They filled the houses of the inhabitants, and entered their kneading-troughs, as did the frogs in Egypt. They would 6. Powers, Grant. HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE DISCOVERY, SETTLEMENT, AND PROGRESS OF EVENTS IN THE COOS COUNTY AND VICINITY PRINCIPALLY INCLUDED BETWEEN THE YEARS 1754 AND 1785 (Haverhill: Henry Merrill, 1880, pages 103-109). 7. The Reverend Asa Burton (1752-1836). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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go up the side of a house, and over it, in such a compact column, that nothing of boards or shingles could be seen! They did not take hold of the pumpkin-vine, peas, potatoes, or flax; but wheat and corn disappeared before them as by magic. They would climb up the stalks of wheat, eat off the stalk just below the head, and almost as soon as the head had fallen upon the ground, it was devoured. To prevent this, the men would “draw the rope,” as they termed it; that is, two men would take a rope, one at each end, and pulling from each other until it was nearly straightened, they would then pass through their wheat fields, and brush off the worms from the stalks, and by perpetual action they retarded the destruction of their wheat; but it was doomed, finally, to extinction. There were fields of corn on the meadows in Haverhill and Newbury standing so thick, large and tall, that in some instances it was difficult to see a man standing more than one rod in the field from the outermost row; but in ten days from the first appearing of the Northern Army, nothing remained of this corn but the bare stalks! Every expedient was resorted to by the inhabitants to protect their fields of corn, but all in vain. In the first place, they dug trenches around their fields, a foot and a half deep, hoping this might prove a defence; but they soon filled the ditch, and the millions that were in the rear went over on the backs of their fellows in the trench, and took possession of the interdicted food. The inhabitants then adopted another expedient to save those fields yet standing. They cut a trench as before; then took round and smooth sapling sticks, of six or eight inches in diameter, and six or eight feet in length, sharpened them to a point, and with these made holes in the bottom of the ditch, once in two or three feet; and, as their meadows were bottom lands, they experienced no difficulty in extending these holes to two and three feet in depth, below the bottom of the trench. The sides of these holes were made smooth by the bar or lever which made the holes, and as soon as the worm stepped from the precipice, he landed at the bottom and could not ascend again; indeed, he was soon buried alive by his unfortunate fellows, who succeeded him in his downfall. Now, those who made these holes to entrap their invaders, went around their fields, and plunged these pointed levers into the holes filled with worms, and destroyed everyone of them at a single thrust, whether it was a peck or half a bushel. By unremitting effort in this way, some reserved to themselves corn enough for seed the next year. About the first of September, the worms suddenly HDT WHAT? INDEX
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disappeared; and where they terminated their earthly career is unknown, for not the carcass of a worm was seen. In just eleven years afterward, in 1781, the same kind of worm appeared again, and the fears of the people were much excited; but they were comparatively few in number, and no one of the kind has ever been seen since. This visitation, which destroyed the principal grains of that year, was felt severely by all the new settlements; for it not only cut off their bread-stuffs, but it deprived them of the means of making their pork to a great degree, and reduced the quantity of fodder for their cattle. The settlements at Haverhill and Newbury did not feel this calamity quite so much as those infant settlements in the towns north and south of them. They had been longer in their settlements, had some old stock of provisions on hand, and had more means to procure supplies from Charlestown, or by the way of Charlestown. Jonathan Tyler, of Piermont, related to me, that the settlements in that town were left without the means of subsistence from their own farms. His father drew hay on a hand sled upon the ice, from the great Ox Bow in Newbury, to support his cow the following winter. And had it not been for two sources opened for their support, they must have deserted the town. One was the extraordinary crop of pumpkins in Haverhill and Newbury. The corn being cut off, and the pumpkins remaining untouched by the Northern Army, they grew astonishingly, and seemed to cover the whole ground where the corn had stood, and the yield was great. The people of Haverhill and Newbury gave the settlers in Piermont the privilege of carrying away, gratis, as many pumpkins as they would. They went up, made a kind of raft and transported them by water to Piermont. Their raft was a novelty in its kind, and will show us how truly “necessity is the mother of invention.” They cut them two straight trees from forty to fifty feet in length, and from fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter; and enough of these were generally found, already felled and dry, to answer their purpose. They bored holes near the ends of these trees, and introduced slats to hold them together at each end, in the manner that the long body of a hay-cart is made, only at twice or thrice the distance from each other that the sides of a hay-cart are placed. These two sides were first placed in the water, and then joined together. The pumpkins were then brought from the fields, which were contiguous to the river, and placed in the water, in this oblong square, until it was filled; the pumpkins, being buoyant, would not sink, and could not escape from their pen. Two men in a skiff would then weigh anchor, and tow the raft of tons’ weight to Piermont shores, where the freight was HDT WHAT? INDEX
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landed, and conveyed to the habitations of men! Another source of support was opened to them in the immense number of pigeons which Providence sent them immediately upon the disappearance of the Northern Army. Nothing could equal their number, unless it was the worms which had preceded them. The Tylers of Piermont, Daniel, David, and Jonathan, commenced taking pigeons on the meadow, west of Haverhill Corner, and in the space of ten days, they had taken more than four hundred dozen!8 They carried them to Piermont, and made what is defined, in the Yankee vocabulary, “a bee,” for picking pigeons; and two or three times a week the people of Haverhill were invited down to Mr. Tyler’s to pick pigeons. Those who went had the meat of all they picked, and the Tylers had the feathers; and they made, says Jonathan Tyler, “four very decent beds of those feathers.” The bodies of those pigeons, when dressed, dried, and preserved for the winter, were very palatable and nutritious, and proved a good substitute for other meats, of which the inhabitants had been despoiled by the Huns and Goths of the north. And we are bound to recognize the Divine Goodness in this providential supply, when the ordinary means of subsistence were cut off. It generally characterizes the Divine Government, when He has tried his people.
8.The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), now extinct, “... was the most abundant bird that ever existed ... migrating every spring and fall in astronomical numbers.” Helenette Silver, A HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE GAME AND FURBEARERS, New Hampshire Fish and Game Department Survey, Report No. 6 (May, 1957), pages 402-9. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1771
April 22, Monday: Thomas Green Fessenden was born in Walpole, New Hampshire as the 1st child of the Reverend Thomas K. Fessenden and Elizabeth Kendall Fessenden. He would spend his early years on the family farm.
The actress María Ignacia Ibáñez died of typhoid fever at the age of 26 in the arms of her lover, José de Cadalso y Vázquez.
April 30, day: Hosea Ballou was born in Richmond, New-Hampshire. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1772
The Reverend Jeremy Belknap began to write his history of New Hampshire. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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In the Tennessee territory, John Sevier organized an independent republic to be known as Watauga.
Samuel Adams began to form a network of “committees of correspondence.”9 At Boston Town Meeting, Adams published a list of rights. From this year into 1774 Elbridge Gerry would be serving in the colonial legislature, coming there under the influence of Adams, and would be participating in the Marblehead and the Massachusetts committees of correspondence.
In the American colonies, a wide variety of currencies were in circulation. The most preferred of the coins was a silver dollar produced by such mints as that in Mexico City and denominated the “8 Reales.” It was 39.5 9. Sort of like communist “cells.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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millimeters in diameter and contained 27.07 grams of .903 alloy silver. [IMAGE]
Benjamin Thompson moved to Rumford (Concord, New-Hampshire) to play tutor. Sarah Walker, its richest widow and in her hot thirties, sought him:
She married me, not I her!
But he also took the eye of Governor John Wentworth of New-Hampshire, by how well he sat his mount and wore his Hussar’s cloak.10
10. A good guess is that Thompson was what Woody Allen would in good humor refer to as a “switch hitter” — with twice as many chances of getting a date of a Saturday night. Try not to be jealous. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1773
The family of Syracuse pioneer Ephraim Webster relocated from New Hampshire to New York State. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1774
New Hampshire made itself the 1st state to declare itself independent from England.
The ladies of Edenton, North Carolina, led by Mistress Penelope Barker, confronted British rule by putting away their teapots — this would become known as the “Edenton Tea Party.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.” During this year one of the Virginia slaveholders, Thomas Jefferson, was preparing an anonymous tract SUMMARY VIEW OF THE RIGHTS OF BRITISH AMERICA, by which of course he meant the rights of white men of property and of proper English culture in the British colonies of North America. All and only white. All and only men. All and only propertied. All and only of proper English culture. –No others need apply. Jefferson had not been asked to draft these instructions — he had a way of producing documents in the hope they might be adopted, which in this case did not happen. His friends nevertheless published his text.
A list of some of the slaves that our hero-of-freedom TJ was holding on his plantation Monticello is shown on the following screen, as a way graphically to illustrate the sad fact that indeed he did mean, and only mean, the rights of white men of property and of proper English culture in the British colonies of North America. All HDT WHAT? INDEX
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and only white. All and only men. All and only propertied. All and only of proper English culture. –No others need apply. (You will search in vain on this list for the name of dashing Sally Hemings, although she had been born a slave in the previous year.11)
We say that in this year Jefferson unsuccessfully planted olive cuttings at Monticello — we do not mean to imply by that, however, that he ever had or ever would hold a spade or hoe in his own hand. (Unaware that the Padres who had established missions along the coast of California were already cultivating olives there by 1769, in 1791 he would have several hundred cuttings sent from France to South Carolina, only to be disappointed when they wouldn’t bring in a lot of money.) PLANTS
Word that he was the author of such a treatise would be spread by the Virginia legislature, and the reputation which he would achieve in this manner would help him, in a few years, gain appointment to the drafting committee of the Continental Congress for the writing of a Declaration of Independence. Samuel Ward, representative from Rhode Island to the convention, would describe Jefferson, on the basis of this pamphlet, as “a very sensible spirited fine Fellow,” and one may suppose that indeed he was a very sensible spirited fine Fellow —he certainly did possess the ability and energy to beget slave children, offspring with whom he then was too busy about our nation’s business to spend very much of his quality time with. For the remainder of his life this founding father would be able to use his past membership on this committee, and his skills as a scribe assembling draft material for the consideration of others, as his main claim to immortality.
November 23, Wednesday: Still-extant records of the Dover, New Hampshire monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends include the wedding of Caesar Sankey and Sarah Sharp. This notation has been taken by some incautious historians to indicate that this African American couple had been recognized as Quakers — but in fact it indicates no such thing. (In addition, a notation dating to February 1777, of the disownment of Caesar Sankey for his “going into the war,” has been taken by some incautious historians to indicate that he had been recognized as a Friend — but in fact such a record likewise indicates no such positive thing, indicating merely that the general public needed to be alerted, for he might have been in some manner considered by them to have been marginally associated with this monthly meeting. The general rule, that Quakerism was for the white folks only, governed during this entire timeframe. Had Caesar Sankey or Sarah Sharp ever been considered by any of their contemporaries to have been Quakers, we most assuredly would now be able to discover in the record an abundance of commentary pro and con about that peculiarity.) QUAKER DISOWNMENT
11. And why was that, we wonder? Why would Dashing Sally, as an infant, not be listed in Jefferson’s FARM BOOK? –Was it, perchance, that since this little almost-white girlie was not yet old enough to perform work and not yet old enough to be marketed and not yet old enough to be sexually entered, she was of no particular interest? –Or would there be some more benign explanation for this neglect? HDT WHAT? INDEX
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November 29, Tuesday: The geographer to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Thomas Jefferys, engraved, and B. Romans issued, one of the machines of empire, “A Map of the most Inhabited part of New England, containing the Provinces of Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire, with the Colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Divided into Counties and Townships. The whole composed from actual surveys, and its situation adjusted by astronomical observations.”
1 3 This contained, in addition to a 3 /2 inch by 2 /4 inch version of the Lodge plan of Boston of April 1774, 3 1 a5 /4 inch by 5 /2 inch “plan of Boston Harbor from an accurate survey.”
December 14, Wednesday: Was the Lexington/Concord dustup between the militia and the army actually the 1st engagement of the American Revolution? In previous dustups, groups of colonists had destroyed private property in retaliation against British methods, and in a few cases had assaulted the royal power, and the takeover of Fort William and Mary at Portsmouth, New Hampshire on this date was an action which, according to the Reverend Alonzo H. Quint: was an organized investment of a royal fortress, where the king’s flag was flying, and where the king’s garrison met them with muskets and artillery. It was four months before Lexington, and Lexington was resistance to attack, while this was a deliberate assault. When the king heard of this capture it so embittered him that all hope of concessions was at an end. It made war inevitable.
Organized this action may have been, but the colonials merely made off with guns and powder and there were not any serious casualties. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1775
When, after the battle of Lexington and Concord, some units of the Dover, New Hampshire militia were sent to support the siege of Boston, the Reverend Jeremy Belknap accompanied them as their chaplain. He would remain with the troops during the following winter. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1776
The New Hampshire state seal included a depiction of an Atlantic cod Gadus morhua. Many of the 1st American coins being minted during this period likewise had depictions of codfish on them. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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During the American revolution, unable to protect the Isles of Shoals from British naval forces, the province of New Hampshire would order the islands to be abandoned. The fishermen living there would mostly dismantle their homes and float them to the mainland. Such relocated houses reportedly still exist, scattered from York ME to Ipswich.
During the American revolution Peddocks Island is said to have been the site of a patriot infantrymen’s raid
on a Loyalist farm in which some 800 cows and sheep were confiscated. Some 600 American militiamen were HDT WHAT? INDEX
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then quartered on this island to guard the harbor against the return of British troops.
Meanwhile the French expeditionary force was constructing a pentagonal earthwork “Fort Independence” atop HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Telegraph Hill in the Pemberton section of Hull Village. The fortification’s 22 cannon would dominate the
southerly approaches to Boston Harbor. Only traces of the original earthworks still remain. Re-named Fort Revere to avoid name conflict with the Fort William on Castle Island which in 1779 would be been renamed Fort Independence, this site would be converted into a major coastal defense fortification in the late 1800s and HDT WHAT? INDEX
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would then be deactivated in the 1960s:
POINT ALLERTON HDT WHAT? INDEX
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GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE HDT WHAT? INDEX
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January 5, Friday: The Continental Congress ordered Commander in Chief of the Fleet of the United Colonies Esek Hopkins to destroy a fleet that had been created in Chesapeake Bay the previous autumn by the Loyalist Governor Dunmore of Virginia. It further ordered that upon the completion of this task, the American navy was to clear the Carolina coast and then the Rhode Island coast of loyalist shipping.
When New Hampshire adopted a revolutionary constitution at Exeter, it was the 1st colony to do so. READ THE FULL TEXT
June 15, day: George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the American Army.
New Hampshire declared independence from Great Britain.
The New Jersey legislature ordered the arrest of royal governor William Franklin (illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin). They appointed new delegates to the Continental Congress and instructed them to vote in favor of independence.
July 18, Thursday: The Declaration of Independence was read publicly in Boston and in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1777
January 15, day: The New Hampshire Grants, claimed both by New York and by New Hampshire, declared their independence, deeming themselves the “republic” of “New Connecticut.”
January 18, Saturday: At this point, with the difficult military campaign of 1776 behind them and with victories obtained at Trenton and at Princeton, the members of the 2nd Continental Congress decided that it would be reasonably safe for them personally, to send out to the several states the authenticated copies of their Declaration of Independence as it had been signed by all the delegates in confirmation of their we-will-all- hang-together-or-separately unity. Initially these parchment copies “with the names of the members ... subscribing the same” had been held secret for their personal protection: They were not...given to throwing their fate into God’s hands needlessly. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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The secret signatories had included, among others, for instance, as it turned out, Dr. Josiah Bartlett (1729- 1795) of Kingston, New Hampshire, the 2d to appear on the face of the prettified document:
It was Mary Katherine Goddard who was authorized to issue this 1st printed copy of the Declaration document HDT WHAT? INDEX
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which included the names of all its signers.
CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
February: Still-extant records of the Dover, New Hampshire monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends include the wedding of Caesar Sankey and Sarah Sharp in 1774, and this notation has been taken by some incautious historians to indicate that this African American couple had been recognized as Quakers — whereas in fact it indicated no such thing. In addition, during this month in 1777 that record included a notation of the disownment of Caesar Sankey for his “going into the war,” which has been taken by some incautious historians to indicate that he had been recognized as a Friend — but in fact such a record likewise indicates no such positive thing, indicating merely that the general public needed to be alerted, for he might have been in some manner considered by them to have been marginally associated with this monthly meeting. The general rule, that Quakerism was for the white folks only, governed during this entire timeframe. Had Caesar Sankey or Sarah Sharp ever been considered by any of their contemporaries to have been Quakers, we most assuredly would now be able to discover in the record an abundance of commentary pro and con about that peculiarity.) QUAKER DISOWNMENT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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May: The Reverend Ezra Stiles took charge of a church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Our national birthday, Friday the 4th of July: At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Americans were invited by Captain Thompson to lunch on board a Continental frigate.
In Philadelphia, stones were being thrown through the windows of Quaker homes because, being adherents of the Peace Testimony, these people were unable to honor American military prowess by closing their businesses on the holidays declared in celebration of victories. THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY
The first religious sermon about Independence Day was delivered in Boston by the Reverend William Gordon, before the General Court of Massachusetts.
GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE HDT WHAT? INDEX
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September 21, Sunday: Colonel Benjamin Bellows’s Regiment of Militia (AKA 16th New Hampshire Militia Regiment) was called up at Walpole, New Hampshire as reinforcements for the Continental Army during the Saratoga Campaign. The regiment would join the forces of General Horatio Gates and face off against the British army under General John Burgoyne in northern New York. (The 16th New Hampshire would then serve in General William Whipple’s brigade until, just after the surrender and grounding of arms of Burgoyne’s army was witnessed by two Americans on October 27, 1777, it would disband.)
December 1, Monday: Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus von Steuben arrived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He had come at the urging of Benjamin Franklin and would prove highly valuable in turning the United States Army into something a little bit more than a rabble. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1778
New Hampshire was the initial state to hold a constitutional convention.
The 1st Massachusetts Constitution was rejected by the Massachusetts town meetings, in large part because it had neglected to end slavery and had neglected to allow universal adult male suffrage. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1781
April 4, Wednesday or April 20, Friday (various genealogical sources disagree): Benjamin Dudley Emerson was born in Hampstead, New Hampshire, a son of Colonel Benjamin Emerson and Ruth Tucker Emerson.12
12. Colonel Benjamin Emerson, born in Hampstead, New Hampshire on April 2, 1740, a son of Benjamin Emerson and Hannah Watts Emerson, got married with Mary Tucker, and the two of them were together admitted to the church on May 5, 1799. He was owner of a mill, and resided where the late Dr. J.C. Eastman resided. He died on April 21, 1811, and the body was placed in the Hampstead village cemetery. Mary Tucker had been born in Kingston, New Hampshire on May 5, 1750, daughter of Jacob Tucker and Lydia Lunt Tucker. Having been admitted to the church upon her marriage on May 5, 1799, just after the death of her husband she was admitted to “full communion” in that church as a widow, on September 1, 1811. The couple produced six children, 1st Hannah Emerson on November 4, 1771, 2d Ruth Emerson on September 14, 1775, 3d Maria Emerson on October 5, 1777, 4th Benjamin Dudley Emerson on April 4 or April 20, 1781, 5th Abner Emerson on March 20, 1775 (he would graduate from Dartmouth College in 1805, become a teacher, and die in Somerville, Massachusetts on December 12, 1836), and 6th Frederick Emerson on November 28, 1789 (he would be the author of the North American arithmetics and spelling books, and a teacher many years in Boston public schools). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1783
New Hampshire was the 1st state to require that its constitution be referred to the people for approval.
A slave named Quaco sued for his freedom in the Massachusetts courts under the 1780 constitution, and apparently won on the basis of some technicality. At the census of 1790, Massachusetts would be the sole state to allege that its citizens held no slaves. This was the final Quock Walker case, in which this Worcester County slave managed to persuade the Massachusetts Supreme Court to examine its Constitution of Government document. It was at this point opinioned that the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 had effectively outlawed slavery in Massachusetts, Chief Justice William Cushing himself issuing the court’s determination that, at least within the boundaries of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, “there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature.” You’d suppose that put an end to the issue — wouldn’t you? However Zilversmit’s THE FIRST EMANCIPATION: THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE NORTH (Chicago IL: U of Chicago P, 1967, pages 112-116) makes a case that the Massachusetts courts had exceeded the original intent of the 1780 Constitution, and that therefore this was not in fact the end of the controversy over slavery in Massachusetts. How could it be considered “over,” while there still existed actual enslaved persons in the state? No, as the saying goes, it ain’t over ’till it’s over!
“EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES”: All the great geniuses of the British senate, Fox, Pitt, Burke, Grenville, Sheridan, Grey, Canning, ranged themselves on its side; the poet Cowper wrote for it: Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, in this country, all recorded their votes.
— The same phenomenon would occur in New Hampshire, with the lives of fewer slaves in issue, where courts would opinion that slavery violated the 1783 New Hampshire Constitution despite the fact that it was not at all clear that any of the delegates to New Hampshire’s Constitutional Convention had intended any such thing.
Toward the end of his 15th-Century captivity in England, Prince James Stewart of Scotland had written a long poem for Lady Joan Beaufort, “The Kingis Quair.” In this year William Tytler discovered the poem among manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Its 7-line stanza scheme would become known as “rime royal.”
US independence was recognized in the Treaty of Paris. READ THE FULL TEXT
The “Peace of 1783” with England, signed by Benjamin Franklin, gave the new national government in North America a chance to settle scores at home. Among other punishments for disloyalty (loyalty), the mansion and estate of Colonel Elisha Jones outside Weston MA, at which the Reverend Asa Dunbar and his wife Mary Jones Dunbar, the Colonel’s daughter, had been residing in 1775 and 1776, was confiscated by representatives HDT WHAT? INDEX
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of the new American government. Suddenly they belonged to someone else. DUNBAR FAMILY
(Oh, well, you didn’t want David Henry to grow up a poor little rich kid, now did you!)
Here are a bunch of American loyalists, leaving everything behind and fleeing to Canada (think of the helicopters taking off from the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon, crowded with panicked refugees — it was that sort of situation):
Early in the year Asa Dunbar was admitted to practice law in New Hampshire, and when Elijah Dunbar graduated from Dartmouth College later on during this year he came to study law in the Keene office of his Uncle Asa before beginning to practice law in Keene, New Hampshire and Claremont. At that time Asa, Simeon Olcott, Benjamin West (neither the famous painter nor the Rhode Island almanac-maker), and Daniel Newcomb were the only lawyers in Cheshire County.
January 23, Saturday, 1858: … Mrs. William Monroe told Sophia last evening that she remembered her (Sophia’s) grandfather very well, that he was taller than Father, and used to ride out to their house–she was a Stone and lived where she and her husband did afterward, now Darius Merriam’s–when they made cheeses, to drink the whey, being in consumption. She said that she remembered Grandmother too, Jennie Burns, how she came to the schoolroom (in Middle Street (?), Boston) once, leading her little daughter Elizabeth, the latter so small that she could not tell her name distinctly, but spoke thick and lispingly,– “Elizabeth Orrock Thoreau.”13 JEAN THOREAU JANE “JENNIE” BURNS THOREAU
13. Vide February 7th. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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One should not forbear to mention that it would not have taken much to be “taller than Father” John Thoreau, who was a remarkably short man, and that thus this passage in the journal in no way implied that Jean Thoreau had been tall.
February 7, 1858: …Aunt Louisa Dunbar has talked with Mrs. Monroe, and I can correct or add to my account. She says that she was then only three or four years old, and that she went to school somewhere in Boston, with Aunt Elizabeth and one other child, to a woman named Turner, who kept a spinning-wheel a-going while she taught these three little children. She remembers that one sat on a lignum-vitæ mortar, turned bottom upward, another on a box, and the third on a stool; and then she repeated the story of Jennie Burns bringing her little daughter to the school, as before. … JANE “JENNIE” BURNS THOREAU
February 8, 1858: …Mrs. Monroe says that her mother, Mrs. Stone, respected my grandfather Thoreau very much, because he was a religious man. She remembers his calling one day and inquiring where blue vervain grew, which he wanted to make a syrup for his cough; and she, a girl, happening to know, ran and gathered some. …
JEAN THOREAU HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1784
The initial volume of the Reverend Jeremy Belknap, D.D.’s 3-volume THE HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. COMPREHENDING THE EVENTS OF ONE COMPLETE CENTURY AND SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER PASCATAQUA TO THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY. The Reverend was elected to the American Philosophical Society, although initially his historical study would not receive adequate recognition. Eventually, however, the he would be characterized by Alexis de Tocqueville as America’s best native historian. NEW-HAMPSHIRE, I
The Reverends Belknap and Manasseh Cutler climbed Mount Washington. After clambering into Pinkham Notch from their residences in northern Massachusetts, the two ministers, along with a large hiking party that included Colonel Joseph Whipple, slowly made their way up the mountain to the “krummholz” region in which the vegetation is twisted and shaped by prevailing winds, a few of them turning back along the way, and eventually the ones who persisted arrived entirely above the treeline while the weather worsened. Making their way to what seemed to be a highest pinnacle (maybe), they gobbled up the remaining lunch items they had carried with them and began to descend. After a stormy night on the mountain flank they made their way back to their base camp hardly the worse for wear and tear (although one hiker had fallen along the way, he had not suffered an injury). The expedition eventually concluded at the home of Colonel Whipple in Jefferson, New Hampshire. The Reverend Cutler would aspire to write a natural history of New England.
The attorney Peter Prescott, who had been born in Concord, Massachusetts, died in Nova Scotia.
PETER PRESCOTT [of Concord], a brother of the foregoing [John Prescott, son of Dr. Jonathan Prescott], was born April 17, 1709, and graduated [at Harvard College] in 1730. He studied law, and resided here [in Concord] and in Boston. He dealt largely in wild lands. Peterborough, in New Hampshire, derived its name from him. He was out several times in the French war, and commanded a company at Crown Point in 1758. Some time before the revolution, he removed to Nova Scotia, where he was appointed clerk of one of the courts, and died in 1784.14
14. 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
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1787
March 7, day: Salma Hale was born in Alstead, New Hampshire, a son of David Hale and Hannah Emerson Hale, a grandson of Joseph Hale and Abigail Smith Hale and of Josiah Emerson and Sarah Emerson, and a descendant of the Thomas Hale who had come over from Hertfordshire, England to Newbury, Massachusetts in 1635.
A notebook bears the first entry “The Practical Surveyor. Nathaniel Bowditch. County of Essex and State of Massachusetts, New England. March the Seventh, 1787.” Young Bowditch was approaching his 14th birthday. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1788
February 19, Tuesday: The Reverend Ezra Conant was ordained at Winchester, New Hampshire.
June 21, Saturday: By a hotly contested 57-over-47 vote the US Constitution came into force as New Hampshire became the 9th and decisive state to ratify. READ THE FULL TEXT
RATIFICATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 9, 10, AND 11
June 21, 1788 New Hampshire YES= 57 NO= 47 June 26, 1788 Virginia YES= 89 NO= 79 July 26, 1788 New York YES= 30 NO= 27
HTTP://WWW.YALE.EDU/LAWWEB/AVALON/CONST/RATNH.HTM
James Flatt Melvin was born in Concord to Amos Melvin (2) and Anna Flatt Melvin. (He would remove to Virginia.) THE MELVINS OF CONCORD
Our national birthday, Friday the 4th of July: In Marietta in what would become Ohio (then known as the
Northwestern Territory), James M. Varnum delivered the 1st Independence Day oration ever delivered west of the Alleghenies. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Francis Hopkinson had arranged a “Grand Federal Procession” which amounted to the longest parade in the nation to date. In this year the national birthday celebration turned political as factions struggled with one another in regard to approval of the new federal Constitution. This was especially the case in Albany, New York, where pro-Constitution and anti-Constitution factions clashed (New York would ratify the Constitution on the 26th). The Federalists of Providence, Rhode Island had scheduled an Independence Day ox roast in celebration of the fact that, when on June 21st New Hampshire had voted to approve the federal Constitution –the 9th state to do so– the United States of America had officially come into existence. On the night of July 3d, therefore, the anti-Federalist “Country Party,” in a belated attempt to intercept that celebration, had begun to assemble in a nearby woodland around Colonel William West’s 1st Providence County Brigade (West was also a judge of the Superior Court) marching in from Scituate, Rhode Island. On this morning there had been negotiations, and the insurgent group had disbanded after an agreement that the day’s celebration was going to focus exclusively on an issue in regard HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
to which all could agree, that of simple independence — and that local Federalist orators would courteously refrain from making mention either of the ratification of the Constitution or of the recent event in New Hampshire.
When the Reverend John Pitman went into the city on this day, therefore, the dust was already beginning to settle on this dispute, and what he witnessed there amounted to merely “an Ox roasting whole & the tables set,” and what he heard rumors of was merely that “General West came down at the head of 2 or 300 men armed with guns & bayonets on Poles to distroy the works but was prevented by the Inhabitants turn.g out armed to defend them.” CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY
1788. The anniversary of Independence and the adoption of the Federal Constitution by nine States, were jointly celebrated on the 4th of July. There was a military parade, bells were rung and cannon fired. An address was delivered by Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, in the First Baptist meeting house; and an ox was roasted whole on the plains North of the Cove, at which five or six thousand persons were present. Some three or four hundred men from the country, of the anti-federal party, which then had the ascendancy on the State, appeared near the ground under arms, and threatened an attack. A committee of citizens was delegated to meet and remonstrate with them - the difficulty was compromised, and the enemy quietly withdrew, and left the citizens to enjoy their feast. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1791
The 2d volume of the Reverend Jeremy Belknap, D.D.’s 3-volume THE HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. COMPREHENDING THE EVENTS OF ONE COMPLETE CENTURY AND SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER PASCATAQUA TO THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY. NEW-HAMPSHIRE, I NEW-HAMPSHIRE, II HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1792
The Reverend Jeremy Belknap, D.D. was made an overseer of Harvard University. In this year, also, the final volume appeared of the his 3-volume THE HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. COMPREHENDING THE EVENTS OF ONE COMPLETE CENTURY AND SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER PASCATAQUA TO THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY. NEW-HAMPSHIRE, I NEW-HAMPSHIRE, II NEW-HAMPSHIRE, III HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1794
Sylvestre François Lacroix was aiding his old instructor, Professor Gaspard Monge, in creating material for a course on descriptive geometry.
Timothy Alden, Jr. took his doctorate from Harvard College in Classical and Oriental Languages with high ranks. He would become a teacher at Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Elijah Dunbar, also graduating from Harvard, prepared an assignment that has been preserved, “Calculation and Projection of an Eclipse of the Sun, to happen August 25th, 1794” (14 ½ x 21 ¼ inches).
15. At some point Elijah Dunbar would get married with Mary Ralston, daughter of Alexander Ralston of Keene, New-Hampshire. They would have six children. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1799
May 5: At the age of 18, Benjamin Dudley Emerson was provisionally admitted to the church congregation at Hampstead, New Hampshire “without the indulgence of communing at the Lord’s table until he could more clearly ascertain his fitness for that ordinance.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1803
A turnpike monopoly was granted by the state of New Hampshire to a group of Portland subscribers who wanted to expand their access to the hinterlands of northern New Hampshire and Vermont by grading an all- seasons road through The Notch in the White Mountains. Soon the Crawford brothers, Thomas Jefferson Crawford and Ethan Allan Crawford, would be erecting three inns to cater to wagon drivers and lumberjacks along that route. Every once in awhile, the brothers noted, somebody with money in his pocket would show up, traveling through Crawford Notch to have himself a peak experience on Mount Washington — which at the time was reputed to be the tallest mountain on the North American continent.
Gideon Putnam moved to Saratoga Springs NY and leased some timberland for clear-cutting. With his profits he would establish a sawmill, and with the profits from the sawmill he would establish a tavern near some newly discovered mineral springs known as the “Congress Springs.”
October 3: John Gorrie, who would invent the cold-air process of refrigeration, was born.
Andrew Twombly Foss was born in Dover, New Hampshire.
Gideon Hawley died. His gravestone reads: Gideon Hawley 1807 In memory of Rev Gideon Hawley who was born at Stratford, Connecticut, Nov 5 O S 1727 graduated at Yale College 1749 ordained in Boston July 31 1754 a missionary to the Indians at Onohaguage or the Six Nations installed at Mashpee April 10 1758 died Oct’r 3 1807 AEt 80 There the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest
THE REV. HAWLEY’S REPORT HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1805
On a mountainside of the Franconia Notch about 70 miles north of Concord, New Hampshire, a large and quite rich vein of iron ore was discovered, quite unlike the lowland “bog iron” resources that had been utilized until that date. Investors from Boston and Salem set up the New Hampshire Iron Foundry and hired 10 men at $15.00 per month to blast out the ore and cart it downhill.
While they were carving a path along a mountainside, workmen noticed an intriguing rock formation:
Salma Hale, who had become a printer, began to edit the Walpole, New Hampshire Political Observatory. He would study law and obtain an appointment as clerk of the court of common pleas of Cheshire County. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1806
February 10, Monday: The federal House of Representatives consider a proposition offered by the legislature of the State of New Hampshire, that the US Constitution be amended so as to authorize and empower the federal Congress to pass a law, whenever they may deem it expedient, to prevent the further slave-trade importation of slaves, or people of color, into the United States, or any part thereof. This achieved a reading but was then tabled, that is, disregarded.
HOUSE JOURNAL (reprint of 1826), 9th Congress, 1st session, V. 266; ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 9th Congress, 1st session, page 448. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1811
The blast furnace of the New Hampshire Iron Foundry began to operate in Franconia Notch, a few miles north of the “Old Man of the Mountains” rock formation, beside the Gale River.
October 28, Monday: Charles James Fox was born in Hancock, New Hampshire, a son of the tanner and hotel keeper Jedediah Fox and Mary Wheeler Fox (it has been supposed that this child was a namesake of the famed contemporary Whig orator Charles James Fox, who until his recent death had been the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs). THOMAS FOX OF CONCORD CHARLES JAMES FOX
An allied (Great Britain-Portugal-Spain) force defeated the French at Arroyomolinos de Montáchez in Extremadura.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 28 of 10 Mo// Nothings material to insert. - The day has passed as usual —— ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1813
Lewis Downing began the manufacture of coaches in Concord, New Hampshire. HISTORY OF CONCORD NH
7-year-old Joseph Smith, Jr. contracted typhoid fever and the infection settled in a leg, which required surgery. He would have a slight limp.
Salma Hale relocated from Walpole to Keene, New Hampshire.
Republication of the initial volume of the Reverend Jeremy Belknap, D.D.’s 3-volume THE HISTORY OF NEW- HAMPSHIRE. COMPREHENDING THE EVENTS OF ONE COMPLETE CENTURY AND SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER PASCATAQUA TO THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY (Boston: Bradford and Read). A copy of this would find its way into the personal library of Henry David Thoreau, and he would copy from it into his Indian Notebook #11.16 NEW-HAMPSHIRE, I
16. The original notebooks are held by the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, as manuscripts #596 through #606. There are photocopies, made by Robert F. Sayre in the 1930s, in four boxes at the University of Iowa Libraries, accession number MsC 795. More recently, Bradley P. Dean, PhD and Paul Maher, Jr. have attempted to work over these materials. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
A WEEK: Meanwhile, having passed the Horseshoe Interval in PEOPLE OF Tyngsborough, where the river makes a sudden bend to the A WEEK northwest, — for our reflections have anticipated our progress somewhat, — we were advancing farther into the country and into the day, which last proved almost as golden as the preceding, though the slight bustle and activity of the Monday seemed to penetrate even to this scenery. Now and then we had to muster all our energy to get round a point, where the river broke rippling over rocks, and the maples trailed their branches in the stream, but there was generally a backwater or eddy on the side, of which we took advantage. The river was here about forty rods wide and fifteen feet deep. Occasionally one ran along the shore, examining the country, and visiting the nearest farm-houses, while the other followed the windings of the stream alone, to meet his companion at some distant point, and hear the report of his adventures; how the farmer praised the coolness of his well, and his wife offered the stranger a draught of milk, or the children quarrelled for the only transparency in the window that they might get sight of the man at the well. For though the country seemed so new, and no house was observed by us, shut in between the banks that sunny day, we did not have to travel far to find where men inhabited, like wild bees, and had sunk wells in the loose sand and loam of the Merrimack. There dwelt the subject of the Hebrew scriptures, and the Esprit des Lois, where a thin vaporous smoke curled up through the noon. All that is told of mankind, of the inhabitants of the Upper Nile, and the Sunderbunds, and Timbuctoo, and the Orinoko, was experience here. Every race and class of men was represented. According to Belknap, the historian BELKNAP of New Hampshire, who wrote sixty years ago, here too, perchance, dwelt “new lights,” and free thinking men even then. “The people in general throughout the State,” it is written, “are professors of the Christian religion in some form or other. There is, however, a sort of wise men who pretend to reject it; but they have not yet been able to substitute a better in its place.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
A WEEK: Unlike the Concord, the Merrimack is not a dead but a living stream, though it has less life within its waters and on its banks. It has a swift current, and, in this part of its course, a clayey bottom, almost no weeds, and comparatively few fishes. We looked down into its yellow water with the more curiosity, who were accustomed to the Nile-like blackness of the former river. Shad and alewives are taken here in their season, but salmon, though at one time more numerous than shad, are now more rare. Bass, also, are taken occasionally; but locks and dams have proved more or less destructive to the fisheries. The shad make their appearance early in May, at the same time with the blossoms of the pyrus, one of the most conspicuous early flowers, which is for this reason called the shad-blossom. An insect called the shad-fly also appears at the same time, covering the houses and fences. We are told that “their greatest run is when the apple-trees are in full blossom. The old shad return in August; the young, three or four inches long, in September. These are very fond of flies.” A rather picturesque and luxurious mode of fishing was formerly practised on the Connecticut, at Bellows Falls, where a large rock divides the stream. “On the steep sides of the island rock,” says Belknap, “hang several arm-chairs, fastened to BELKNAP ladders, and secured by a counterpoise, in which fishermen sit to catch salmon and shad with dipping nets.” The remains of Indian weirs, made of large stones, are still to be seen in the Winnipiseogee, one of the head-waters of this river. It cannot but affect our philosophy favorably to be reminded of these shoals of migratory fishes, of salmon, shad, alewives, marsh-bankers, and others, which penetrate up the innumerable rivers of our coast in the spring, even to the interior lakes, their scales gleaming in the sun; and again, of the fry which in still greater numbers wend their way downward to the sea. “And is it not pretty sport,” wrote Captain John Smith, who was on this coast as early as 1614, “to pull up twopence, sixpence, and twelvepence, as fast as you can haul and veer a line?” — “And what sport doth yield a more pleasing content, and less hurt or charge, than angling with a hook, and crossing the sweet air from isle to isle, over the silent streams of a calm sea.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1814
At Londonderry, New Hampshire, Pinkerton Academy was incorporated. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1815
Lewis Downing, Senior bought the house at the south end of Main Street in Concord, New Hampshire, then known as the “Duncan Estate,” but it being subject to a lease, he did not remove there with his coach-building business until 1816. In the rear of the house he had a small shop, where the woodwork and painting was done, the iron work still continuing to be done at the New Hampshire State Prison, and by a Mr. Whitney, who had a blacksmith shop near where Francis N. Fisk’s store stood, at the north end of Main Street.
Samuel Green would confess, just before his hanging, that he had committed his initial murder in about this year in Meredith, New Hampshire: One day we were in a store, where a pedlar happened to come in, who had a box of jewelry and other articles of value on his back. While the pedlar was in the store trading for some of his jewelry, A—— took me aside, and asked me how much money I thought the man had about him. Not being able to judge, he said he thought he had the value of a thousand dollars, and asked me if I was willing to waylay him. I made some objections at first, but as he continued to persuade me, and said a dead cock never crowed, I at last consented. About half a mile from this store, was a large swamp by the side of a pond — the pedlar had to pass through this swamp on his road. When the sun was about two hours high, in the afternoon, we saw him almost ready to start from the store, and accordingly went down to the swamp, there we waited his arrival, having provided ourselves each with a good club. We had not waited long, before he made his appearance. As soon as he came up to us, we stepped out, knocked him down, dragged him out of the road into the bushes, where we soon put an end to his life. Having secured his trunk and what money he had about him, amounting to about 900 dollars, we took him from this place, carried him about a quarter of a mile, tied some large stones to the body, and threw it into the pond, where it sunk. This pedlar was a steady, sober man, and always carried the best of jewelry with him, and used to travel, generally about one in three months, through my town.... We waited in the woods till dark, then went about a mile from where we lived, and hid the trunk by the side of a mountain. I now went again to see the daughter of the widow before mentioned, made her a present of a suit of clothes, and also of some ear and finger rings, part of the property of the pedlar, and likewise a gold necklace. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
October 9, Monday: The Merrimack River had finally been made navigable all the way from Boston to Concord, New Hampshire. Barges of 60 to 75-foot length, with sails for when the wind was in the right direction, could be poled along by boatmen who would plant their 20-foot, iron shod poles in the river bottom at the bow and then walk the length of the boat to the stern, pushing it along. Using such means it was taking
7 to 10 days to get a barge of produce down the river from Concord to Boston, part of the reason being that in HISTORY OF CONCORD NH
the 6-mile stretch between the Merrimack and the Billerica millpond on the Concord River, the boatmen had to push the load against the mild current.17 It took considerably longer, of course, to get the barge back up against the current of the swift Merrimack River to Concord NH. But all of this new transportation and freightage activity was utterly bypassing Newburyport MA — the difficult bar of Plum Island and its associated shallows across the mouth of the Merrimack had proved to be this port’s kiss of death. That city would become a backwater through which nobody would ever again ship cargo, despite the fact that some of the money that had created the Middlesex Canal had come from this city’s investors. —And yet, this new canal which was forever destroying Newburyport’s prospects would be usable for only a few decades before
17. Initially it had been presumed that the waters of the Merrimack River would flow south through this section of the canal, but it had been discovered during construction of the canal that the Concord River was at that point 25 feet higher than the Merrimack. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
railroads would render it quite useless for anything except the relocation of water from one place to another!
On this date the Garrison family (the mother, Lloyd and his acting-out elder brother James, and their little sister) became part of the general exodus out of this failed dream of a metropolis, by sailing out of Salem harbor on the brig Edward, bound for better opportunities in Baltimore. William Lloyd Garrison was a “leftie” who was being punished in public school until he became able to write with his right hand:
JOB FEELS THE ROD YET BLESSES GOD.
Lloyd would endure fourteen seasick days before they reached their destination, and then the firm which was going to employ his mother would quickly fail and collapse, stranding the family there in the midst of a slave/ slavemaster culture. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1816
April: An act was passed by the legislature of New Hampshire changing the name of Dartmouth College to Dartmouth University, and changing the board of trustees. The old board refusing to submit, the governor brought the subject before the legislature and an act was instituted, fining any one who should oppose the new board, which thus obtained possession of the college buildings and records. The matter would be carried to the supreme court, which would finally decide that the original charter of the college had been a contract, and its modification without the consent of the trustees unconstitutional (the winning lawyer in this famous case would be Daniel Webster, and the losing lawyer Salma Hale). In the end therefore the college would be reinstated in possession (Henry Thoreau would be found to have a copy of this 410-page case in his personal library). PERUSE THE 410 PAGES HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1817
The facilities of the New Hampshire Iron Foundry in Franconia Notch, a few miles north of the “Old Man of the Mountains” rock formation, were improved: • reservoir of water near the top of the blast furnace as a precaution against fire • air furnace • steel furnace • pounding machine to separate ore from cinders • forge with four fires and two hammers • turning table • trip-hammer shop
Samuel Green of New Hampshire would confess, just before his hanging, that he had committed another murder in about this year: Mr. P. one day informed us of a Frenchman who was bound for Montreal, and by his appearance would be a good fowl for us to pick. The Frenchman had put up at the tavern that night, and was going on his journey the next morning.... Mr. P asked us if we could afford to give him any thing for his information; we told him that would depend upon what luck we met with. We went out and agreed upon a plan, concluded to go as far as the bridge ... and attack him near the same place where I escaped into the woods, with the loss of my hat. [after a previous burglary went awry] We were each of us armed with a pair of pistols and a large knife, and waited in this dismal place till about nine o'clock the next morning, when he made his appearance.... A—— went out and seized the horse by the bridle; as soon as this was done, I drew out a pistol, presented it to his breast and told him to dismount; the man was very much frightened.... The poor man dismounted, and fell upon his knees, and begged us for God's sake to spare his life. I can truly say that my heart bled to hear his entreaties and had I been alone, should have suffered him to proceed on his journey; but A—— said it was no time to hesitate, and bade me to dispatch business. To my eternal shame I shot the man through the heart, and dragged him out of the road into the bushes, while A—— shot the horse in the head. We had provided ourselves with cords on purpose, so took off the portmanteau and fastened stones to the horse, then tumbled him from the ledge into the pond, where he sunk to the bottom. We then returned to the man; and in his pocket we found a gold repeating watch, and in his portmanteau, money, in gold and HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
silver to the amount of 1700 dollars, we also found in his pockets a pair of brass pocket pistols, which the man had not the courage to use; we tied stones to him and his portmanteau, and they shared the same fate with the horse. We staid in the woods that day, and returned at night to Mr. P.'s, informed him of our success, and gave him 200 dollars for his information, with which he was very well satisfied. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1818
The coach manufacturing industry became big business in Concord, New Hampshire. HISTORY OF RR HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1819
March 3, Wednesday: An executive meeting of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, it was decided that Jan Václav Vorísek should henceforth conduct the concerts and have a greater say in the choice of music. He would conduct the following two performances.
This day marked the end of Salma Hale’s term as an elected member of the 15th Federal Congress. He would land on his feet as clerk of the New Hampshire Supreme Court (until 1834). The US Congress enacted a piece of legislation which would be misused later, in the case The U.S. v. The Libelants, etc., of the Schooner Amistad. “An Act in addition to the Acts prohibiting the slave trade.” STATUTES AT L ARGE, III. 532. For proceedings in Congress, see SENATE JOURNAL, 15th Congress, 2d session, pages 338, 339, 343, 345, 350, 362; HOUSE JOURNAL, 15th Congress, 2d session, pages 9-19, 42-3, 150, 179, 330, 334, 341, 343, 352. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
The act prohibited the importation of persons to be sold here as slaves. When the schooner La Amistad entered American waters, it would later be falsely argued by this government, they were slaves who had previously stolen themselves from their lawful owners, and were importing themselves in violation of the law. It would take the Supreme Court decision of March 9, 1841 to correct this preposterous government allegation, thus finding in error the circuit court’s affirmation of the district court’s decree in the case.
INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE Due to the continued profitability of the illegal importation of slaves into the US, this legislation offered a bounty of $50 to informers. If these self-importers aboard the Amistad had turned themselves in, then, perhaps they would have been entitled to collect fifty bucks apiece for informing upon themselves! SLAVERY
W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: To remedy the obvious defects of the Act of 1807 two courses were possible: one, to minimize the crime of transportation, and, by encouraging informers, to concentrate efforts against the buying of smuggled slaves; the other, to make the crime of transportation so great that no slaves would be imported. The Act of 1818 tried the first method; that of 1819, the second.18 The latter was obviously the more upright and logical, and the only method deserving thought even in 1807; but the Act of 1818 was the natural descendant of that series of compromises which began in the Constitutional Convention, and which, instead of postponing the settlement of critical questions to more favorable times, rather aggravated and 18. The first method, represented by the Act of 1818, was favored by the South, the Senate, and the Democrats; the second method, represented by the Act of 1819, by the North, the House, and by the as yet undeveloped but growing Whig party. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
complicated them. The immediate cause of the Act of 1818 was the Amelia Island scandal.19 Committees in both Houses reported bills, but that of the Senate finally passed. There does not appear to have been very much debate.20 The sale of Africans for the benefit of the informer and of the United States was strongly urged “as the only means of executing the laws against the slave trade as experience had fully demonstrated since the origin of the prohibition.”21 This proposition was naturally opposed as “inconsistent with the principles of our Government, and calculated to throw as wide open the door to the importation of slaves as it was before the existing prohibition.”22 The act, which became a law April 20, 1818,23 was a poorly constructed compromise, which virtually acknowledged the failure of efforts to control the trade, and sought to remedy defects by pitting cupidity against cupidity, informer against thief. One-half of all forfeitures and fines were to go to the informer, and penalties for violation were changed as follows: — For equipping a slaver, instead of a fine of $20,000, a fine of $1000 to $5000 and imprisonment from 3 to 7 years. For transporting Negroes, instead of a fine of $5000 and forfeiture of ship and Negroes, a fine of $1000 to $5000 and imprisonment from 3 to 7 years. For actual importation, instead of a fine of $1000 to $10,000 and imprisonment from 5 to 10 years, a fine of $1000 to $10,000, and imprisonment from 3 to 7 years. For knowingly buying illegally imported Negroes, instead of a fine of $800 for each Negro and forfeiture, a fine of $1000 for each Negro. The burden of proof was laid on the defendant, to the extent that he must prove that the slave in question had been imported at least five years before the prosecution. The slaves were still left to the disposal of the States. This statute was, of course, a failure from the start,24 and at the very next session Congress took steps to revise it. A bill was reported in the House, January 13, 1819, but it was not discussed till March.25 It finally passed, after “much debate.”26 The Senate dropped its own bill, and, after striking out the 19. Committees on the slave-trade were appointed by the House in 1810 and 1813; the committee of 1813 recommended a revision of the laws, but nothing was done: ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 11 Congress 3 session, page 387; 12th Congress 2d session, pages 1074, 1090. The presidential message of 1816 led to committees on the trade in both Houses. The committee of the House of Representatives reported a joint resolution on abolishing the traffic and colonizing the Negroes, also looking toward international action. This never came to a vote: SENATE JOURNAL, 14th Congress 2d session, pages 46, 179, 180; HOUSE JOURNAL, 14th Congress 2d session, pages 25, 27, 380; HOUSE DOCUMENT, 14th Congress 2d session, II. No. 77. Finally, the presidential message of 1817 (HOUSE JOURNAL, 15th Congress 1st session, page 11), announcing the issuance of orders to suppress the Amelia Island establishment, led to two other committees in both Houses. The House committee under Middleton made a report with a bill (AMERICAN STATE PAPERS, MISCELLANEOUS, II. No. 441), and the Senate committee also reported a bill. 20. The Senate debates were entirely unreported, and the report of the House debates is very meagre. For the proceedings, see SENATE JOURNAL, 15th Congress 1st session, pages 243, 304, 315, 333, 338, 340, 348, 377, 386, 388, 391, 403, 406; HOUSE JOURNAL, 15th Congress 1st session, pages 19, 20, 29, 51, 92, 131, 362, 410, 450, 452, 456, 468, 479, 484, 492, 505. 21. Simkins of South Carolina, Edwards of North Carolina, and Pindall: ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 15th Congress 1st session, page 1740. 22. Hugh Nelson of Virginia: ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 15th Congress 1st session, page 1740. 23. STATUTES AT LARGE, III. 450. By this act the first six sections of the Act of 1807 were repealed. 24. Or, more accurately speaking, every one realized, in view of the increased activity of the trade, that it would be a failure. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
provision for the death penalty, passed the bill as it came from the House.27 The House acquiesced, and the bill became a law, March 3, 1819,28 in the midst of the Missouri trouble. This act directed the President to use armed cruisers on the coasts of the United States and Africa to suppress the slave-trade; one- half the proceeds of the condemned ship were to go to the captors as bounty, provided the Africans were safely lodged with a United States marshal and the crew with the civil authorities. These provisions were seriously marred by a proviso which Butler of Louisiana, had inserted, with a “due regard for the interests of the State which he represented,” viz., that a captured slaver must always be returned to the port whence she sailed.29 This, of course, secured decided advantages to Southern slave-traders. The most radical provision of the act was that which directed the President to “make such regulations and arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe keeping, support, and removal beyond the limits of the United States, of all such negroes, mulattoes, or persons of colour, as may be so delivered and brought within their jurisdiction;” and to appoint an agent in Africa to receive such Negroes.30 Finally, an appropriation of $100,000 was made to enforce the act.31 This act was in some measure due to the new colonization movement; and the return of Africans recaptured was a distinct recognition of its efforts, and the real foundation of Liberia. To render this straightforward act effective, it was necessary to add but one measure, and that was a penalty commensurate with the crime of slave stealing. This was accomplished by the Act of May 15, 1820,32 a law which may be regarded as the last of the Missouri Compromise measures. The act originated from the various bills on piracy which were introduced early in the sixteenth Congress. The House bill, in spite of opposition, was amended so as to include slave-trading under piracy, and passed. 25. Nov. 18, 1818, the part of the presidential message referring to the slave-trade was given to a committee of the House, and this committee also took in hand the House bill of the previous session which the Senate bill had replaced: HOUSE JOURNAL, 15th Congress 2d session, pages 9-19, 42, 150, 179, 330, 334, 341, 343, 352. 26. Of which little was reported: ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 15th Congress 2d session, pages 1430-31. Strother opposed, “for various reasons of expediency,” the bounties for captors. Nelson of Virginia advocated the death penalty, and, aided by Pindall, had it inserted. The vote on the bill was 57 to 45. 27. The Senate had also had a committee at work on a bill which was reported Feb. 8, and finally postponed: SENATE JOURNAL, 15th Congress 2d session, pages 234, 244, 311-2, 347. The House bill was taken up March 2: ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 15th Congress 2d session, page 280. 28. STATUTES AT LARGE, III. 532. 29. ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 15th Congress 2d session, page 1430. This insured the trial of slave-traders in a sympathetic slave State, and resulted in the “disappearance” of many captured Negroes. 30. STATUTES AT LARGE, III. 533. 31. The first of a long series of appropriations extending to 1869, of which a list is given on the next page. The totals are only approximately correct. Some statutes may have escaped me, and in the reports of moneys the surpluses of previous years are not always clearly distinguishable. 32. In the first session of the sixteenth Congress, two bills on piracy were introduced into the Senate, one of which passed, April 26. In the House there was a bill on piracy, and a slave-trade committee reported recommending that the slave-trade be piracy. The Senate bill and this bill were considered in Committee of the Whole, May 11, and a bill was finally passed declaring, among other things, the traffic piracy. In the Senate there was “some discussion, rather on the form than the substance of these amendments,” and “they were agreed to without a division”: SENATE JOURNAL, 16th Congress 1st session, pages 238, 241, 268, 287, 314, 331, 346, 350, 409, 412, 417, 420, 422, 424, 425; HOUSE JOURNAL, 16th Congress 1st session, pages 113, 280, 453, 454, 494, 518, 520, 522, 537; ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 16th Congress 1st session, pages 693-4, 2231, 2236-7, etc. The debates were not reported. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Senate agreed without a division. This law provided that direct participation in the slave-trade should be piracy, punishable with death.33 STATUTES AT LARGE
VOLUME PAGE DATE AMOUNT APPROPRIATED III. 533-4 March 3, 1819 $100,000 III. 764 March 3, 1823 50,000 IIV. 141 March 14, 1826 32,000 IIV. 208 March 2, 1827 36,710 20,000 IIV. 302 May 24, 1828 30,000 IIV. 354 March 2, 1829 16,000 IIV. 462 March 2, 1831 16,000 IIV. 615 February 20, 1833 5,000 IIV. 67 January 24, 1834 5,000
IV. 157-8 March 3, 1837 11,413 .57 IV. 501 August 4, 1842 10,543 .42 IV. 615 March 3, 1843 5,000 IIX. 96 August 10, 1846 25,000 IXI. 90 August 18, 1856 8,000 IXI. 227 March 3, 1857 8,000 IXI. 404 March 3, 1859 75,000 IXII. 21 May 26, 1860 40,000 IXII. 132 February 19, 1861 900,000 IXII. 219 March 2, 1861 900,000 IXII. 639 February 4, 1863 17,000 IXIII. 424 January 24, 1865 17,000 IXIV. 226 July 25, 1866 17,000 IXIV. 415 February 28, 1867 17,000 IXV. 58 March 30, 1868 12,500 IXV. 321 March 3, 1869 12,500
33. STATUTES AT LARGE, III. 600-1. This act was in reality a continuation of the piracy Act of 1819, and was only temporary. The provision was, however, continued by several acts, and finally made perpetual by the Act of Jan. 30, 1823: STATUTES AT LARGE, III. 510-4, 721. On March 3, 1823, it was slightly amended so as to give district courts jurisdiction. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
Total, 50 years $ 2,386,666.99 Minus surpluses re-appropriated (approximate) 48,666.99? $ 2,338,000.00 Cost of squadron, 1843-58, @ $384,500 per year 5,767,500 (HOUSE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31st Cong., 1st sess., IX. No. 73) Returning slaves on “Wildfire” (STATUTES AT LARGE, XII. 41) 250,000 Approximate cost of squadron, 1858-66, (?)4,000,000 probably not less than $500,000 per year Approximate money cost of suppressing the slave-trade (?)$ 12,355,500
Cf. Kendall’s Report: SENATE DOCUMENT, 21st Congress 2d session, I. No. 1, pages 211-8; AMERICAN STATE PAPERS, NAVAL, III. No. 429 E.; also Reports of the Secretaries of the Navy from 1819 to 1860. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1820
There was at this point not even a wall along the river side of Fort Niagara, and the interior of the post was completely exposed to fire from Fort Mississauga. Peace was its only prayer, and the 1820s would in fact be a time of peace along the Niagara River. The garrison of the fortress was small, only sufficient to guard the portage route around Niagara Falls. A similar garrison served the British for a similar purpose on the opposite shore.
In this year two American whiskey smugglers went over the Niagara Falls (but not, apparently, on purpose). During this decade the “fashionable” tour, for Americans, was a string of attractive venues that followed quite closely the path of our most rapid economic development, up the grand Hudson lined with cliffs and with stately homes from New-York to Albany and the glamorous Saratoga and Ballston watering-holes of “the springs” and then west along the route of the Erie Canal to an experience of the sublime at Niagara Falls.34 This was referred to as “the northern route.” Since the 1820s, fashionable tourists had used their travels to stake a claim to status. But scenic tourism made the most powerful claim of all: not about money, but about gentility. In that sense, the cult of scenery was indeed a kind of “conspicuous aesthetic consumption,” as Raymond Williams termed it.... [I]ts most powerful offer was internal: the assurance that one truly deserved the social authority awarded to the “refined and cultivated” classes. During this decade the Crawford brothers would be monopolizing the tourist business to and through Crawford Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Initial publication of Salma Hale’s textbook THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM THEIR FIRST SETTLEMENT AS COLONIES TO THE CLOSE OF THE WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN IN 1815, employing as author identification “A Citizen of Massachusetts.”
Alvan Fisher depicted the great horseshoe falls at “Niagara Falls.”
34. There is a very extensive literature on the 19th-Century aesthetic of the sublime. Steady yourself before you consult it by watching baseball games on TV until you are utterly bored out of your mind, then begin with Edmund Burke’s A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. To study our changing attitudes toward the landscape, consult Paul Shepard’s MAN IN THE LANDSCAPE: A HISTORIC VIEW OF THE ESTHETICS OF NATURE (NY: Knopf, 1967) and Elizabeth McKinsey’s NIAGARA FALLS: ICON OF THE AMERICAN SUBLIME (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985). HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1822
March 29, Friday: The murderer Samuel Green received his sentence of death. Returned to his cell, he wrote a letter to his mother Mercy Q. Green, which he would enclose in a letter posted to Joseph Chapman of Meredith, New Hampshire.
Despite his confessing in writing to at least two murders in an account that would be published in this year in Boston as a book, his mother was to take whatever comfort she could from the fact that his conviction, of the 3d murder, had been wrongfully obtained on the basis of suborned perjury from other convicts: Boston, March 29, 1822. My Dear Mother, In the solitary recess of a prison, I now sit down to write to you the last lines you are ever to receive from your unfortunate son. I will not attempt, for the fist time, to inform you of my unhappy fate. When I left the peaceful asylum of my tender mother, I little thought that I was leaving it for the last time, never more to return. I entertained nothing but the hope, and even boasted a long and lasting felicity: but alas, the scene changed — I was taken for breaking into a store, for which I was sent to prison; and having laid there for three years and a half, I was taken out and falsely accused of murder, for which I was tried, and two prisoners for the sake of their liberty, swore false against me; and now my dear mother, in the utmost agony of grief and despair, I must inform you I am condemned to die, and most likely, before you receive this, I shall be no more: excuse me for not writing to you before: I did not intend to let you know of my unhappy fate, and I am afraid this letter will break your heart, and sometimes I am tempted not to send it; but I consider it my duty to write you this letter, and humbly ask your pardon for all past offences and the many tears I have caused you to shed: had I have taken your advice and staid at home, I might have still lived and been happy. I have seen the folly of my ways, but alas, not till too late. O, most offended mother, could I now but have the satisfaction of falling on my knees at your feet and receiving your pardon, HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
I could then die in peace; but that privilege will be denied me. I am now in irons and chained to the floor — I shall soon sink under the weight of my misfortunes. I was sent to prison the 3d of July, 1818, and have been in prison ever since. I am now in Boston gaol and shall be executed within thirty days — You must remember my love to my brothers and sisters, and to those who once called themselves my friends — bid them from me a long and eternal farewell, and then my dear mother try to forget that there ever was such a being as your poor unfortunate son. Samuel Green.
December 22, Sunday: Grindall Reynolds was born in Franconia, New Hampshire.
Ludwig van Beethoven was elected an honorary member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, Stockholm.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day [sic] 22nd of 12 M 1822 / A pleasant Day & Meeting well Attended, & five testimonies delivered - some of them had a reaching effect on my Mind — but on the whole it was a season of leanness to me Silent in the Afternoon, well attended & a little more life in my mind than in the morning RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1823
Salma Hale was a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. Appointed as a trustee of the University of Vermont, he would serve until 1833. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1824
Salma Hale was a member of the New Hampshire Senate. He received an honorary AM degree from the University of Vermont.
At least by this date the practice of leaving a register, in which the climbers could enter their names and dates, had begun at Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, since at the time this was being alleged to be the tallest mountain on the North American continent (and therefore the peak I’m-at-the-top-of- it-all experience of an American’s life). HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1825
Salma Hale was again a member of the New Hampshire Senate.
The architectural firm of Asher Benjamin declared bankruptcy and he left Boston to supervise construction of locks, canals, roads and mill buildings for the Nashua Manufacturing Company in Nashua, New Hampshire. Over the next several years he also would design a couple of churches in Nashua, before returning to Boston in 1827. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1826
Clearly, the reservoir of water positioned near the top of the blast furnace for the smelting of iron ore in Franconia, New Hampshire as a precaution against fire, in 1817, had been inadequate as a safety precaution against fire, for in this year the works, which was being superintended by the father of Grindall Reynolds, burned down never to be rebuilt.
Salma Hale’s article “Annals of the Town of Keene” in the Collections of the New-Hampshire Historical Society was reprinted at Concord, New Hampshire by Jacob B. Moore as ANNALS OF THE TOWN OF KEENE, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1734, TO THE YEAR 1790 (69 pages). Henry David Thoreau would paraphrase from this at the start of “A YANKEE IN CANADA”.
THE TOWN OF KEENE NH HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
“A YANKEE IN CANADA”: The country was new to me beyond Fitchburg. In Ashburnham and afterward, as we were whirled rapidly along, I noticed the woodbine (Ampelopsis quinquefolia), its leaves now changed, for the most part on dead trees, draping them like a red scarf. It was not a little exciting, suggesting bloodshed, or at least a military life, like an epaulet or sash, as if it were dyed with the blood of the trees whose wounds it was inadequate to staunch. For now the bloody autumn was come, and an Indian warfare was waged through the forest. These military trees appeared very numerous, for our rapid progress connected those that were even some miles apart. Does the woodbine prefer the elm? The first view of Monadnoc was obtained five or six miles this side of Fitzwilliam, but nearest and best at Troy and beyond. Then there were the Troy cuts and embankments. Keene street strikes the traveller favorably, it is so wide, level, straight, and long. I have heard one of my relatives who was born and bred there say that you could see a chicken run across it a mile off. I have also been told that when this town was settled they laid out a street four rods wide, but at a subsequent meeting of the proprietors one rose and remarked, “We have plenty of land, why not make the street eight rods wide?” and so they voted that it should be eight rods wide, and the town is known far and near for its handsome street. It was a cheap way of securing comfort, as well as fame, and I wish that all new towns would take pattern from this. It is best to lay our plans widely in youth, for then land is cheap, and it is but too easy to contract our views afterward. Youths so laid out, with broad avenues and parks, that they may make handsome and liberal old men! Show me a youth whose mind is like some Washington city of magnificent distances, prepared for the most remotely successful and glorious life after all, when those spaces shall be built over and the idea of the founder be realized. I trust that every New England boy will begin by laying out a Keene street through his head, eight rods wide. I know one such Washington city of a man, whose lots as yet are only surveyed and staked out, and except a cluster of shanties here and there, only the Capitol stands there for all structures, and any day you may see from afar his princely idea borne coachwise along the spacious but yet empty avenues. Keene is built on a remarkably large and level interval, like the bed of a lake, and the surrounding hills, which are remote from its street, must afford some good walks. The scenery of mountain towns is commonly too much crowded. A town which is built on a plain of some extent, with an open horizon, and surrounded by hills at a distance, affords the best walks and views.
A YANKEE IN CANADA HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
This did not merely amount to copying from a book of local history about the town of Keene, as you can see. Thoreau has added, to the historical material supplied by Salma Hale, one of his family’s chicken jokes. This is my personal favorite among the various bits and pieces of Henry’s dry humor — our guy was involved in the origins of the chicken joke and it seems that nobody even is aware of that now!
You may have seen on the Internet a list of reasons why the chicken crossed the road: • Douglas Adams: “Forty-two.” • Oliver North: “National Security was at stake.” • Ronald Reagan: “Well.....” • Mr. T: “If you saw me coming you’d cross the road!” • Emily Dickinson: “Because it could not stop for death.” • Ernest Hemingway: “To die. In the rain. Alone.” • Tom Dillingham: “To show the armadillo it coulda been done.”
Obviously, the internet is here being insufficiently inventive, for Thoreau also told a story about a chicken crossing the road. His mother had been born in Keene, New Hampshire, so he paid attention as he passed through that town on an excursion train on his way up to tour Montreal and Quebec during Autumn 1850. In his “A YANKEE IN CANADA” manuscript, not to be published as such until 1866 after his death, he wrote of his train passing through Keene and of his looking out the window of that Boston&Maine passenger coach and remembering family stories about why the main street of that town happened to be so unusually wide. He informs us at the start of this manuscript that one of his relatives had declared this street to be sooooo wide, sooooo wide, why, you could see a chicken run across it a mile off — which is a bit of humor in itself if you stop and think about it because how far one can see a chicken down a road depends entirely upon how flat and how straight that road is (or perhaps on how big those chickens are;-) rather than on how wide it might be. But the Thoreauvian twist on this relative remark is that when the new town had originally been laid out in the 1750s after the old town had been demonstrated to have been somewhat too susceptible to attack by native Americans, their new main street was being plotted at four rods wide when someone opinioned that there was “plenty of land”: “... and so they voted that it should be eight rods wide, and the town is known far and near for its handsome street. It was a cheap way of securing comfort, as well as fame, and I wish that all new towns would take pattern from this. It is best to lay our plans widely in youth,
So we should add to this internet list of chicken-crossing-the-road jokes: • Henry David Thoreau: “To teach us to lay — specifically, to teach us to lay our plans widely in youth.”
How many rushing Americans, perusing “A YANKEE IN CANADA” in the past century while rushing to get on, have entirely missed the implicit reference to laying, a henly activity, in this Thoreau writing? Our guy continues, in this context, with a veiled reference to a particular individual (presumably, he was thinking of Amos Bronson Alcott) who had hatched such eggs as to incorporate himself a veritable “Washington city of a man, whose lots as yet are only surveyed and staked out, and except a cluster of shanties here and there, only the Capitol stands there for all structures, and any day you may see from afar his princely idea borne coachwise along the spacious but yet empty avenues.”
Henry’s humor is dry. He lays in wait for you. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1827
The tourist Harriet Martineau took notice of the Great Stone Face of New Hampshire, but was not sufficiently impressed: “The sharp rock certainly resembles a human face; but what then? There is neither wonder nor beauty in it.” Naughty tourist!
Andrew Twombly Foss was ordained as a Baptist minister. He would serve congregations in Dover, New Hampshire, South Parsonsfield, Maine, Hopkinton and New Boston, New Hampshire, and Manchester, New Hampshire.
Until sometime in 1829, Cyrus Barton would be register of deeds for Sullivan County in New Hampshire.
The family of origin of the Reverend Grindall Reynolds relocated permanently from Franconia, New Hampshire to Boston. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
J. Stephens Abbot, a journeyman coach body maker of Salem, Massachusetts who had learned his trade with and had been at work for Mr. Frothingham, a somewhat celebrated coachmaker, had been hired by Lewis Downing, Senior to come to Concord and fabricate three coach bodies. He had arrived in Concord the previous Christmas Eve. During the winter and spring he fashioned the first coach bodies ever built in New Hampshire. Basically the Concord coach was an English-model carriage modified for rough American roads, with its body suspended well above its axles upon leather straps which converted much of the up-and-down jarring into a less unsettling side-to-side swaying. There would be models of this that would seat 6, 8, 10, or 12. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
The first coach was completed and went out of the shop during July, and was sold to John Sheperd. One of the remaining two was soon sold in Vermont. After completing his job with Mr. Downing, Mr. Abbot went to Framingham, Massachusetts and was about to form a business connection there, but this was intercepted due to friendly counsel and advice from a local tavernkeeper. He then went to Providence, Rhode Island and worked a short time, but not feeling contented returned to Concord in the fall, and would be taken in as a partner by Downing at the beginning of the following year.
July 2, Monday: Thomas Cooper gave the speech in which he used the phrase “calculate the value of the union.”
In England, the law of debt was amended so that the lowest sum that could be recovered by imprisonment of a debtor would be £20, rather than £15.
In New Hampshire, Londonderry was divided and a town of Derry NH was incorporated in the eastern part. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1828
Salma Hale’s CONSPIRACY OF THE SPANIARDS AGAINST VENICE, TRANSLATED FROM THE ABBÉ REAL AND OF JOHN LEWIS FIESCO AGAINST GENOA, TRANSLATED FROM CARDINAL DE BETZ. He was again a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives.
December 6, Saturday: The Reverend Waldo Emerson went to Concord, New Hampshire to court the sickly 17-year-old heiress Miss Ellen Louisa Tucker, whose guardian was William Sewell.35
35. This suitor and this guardian may have had something in common since certain of Emerson’s own ancestors had been Sewalls, to wit Hannah Sewall (circa 1677-January 29, 1728); John Sewall (England, October 10, 1654-Newbury MA, 1699); the Reverend Henry Sewall (circa 1613/14-Newbury MA, May 16, 1700). HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1830
Salma Hale served as president of the New Hampshire Historical Society.
John Farmer (1798-1859)’s 33-page THE EMIGRANTS’ GUIDE, OR, POCKET GAZETTEER OF THE SURVEYED 36 PART OF MICHIGAN / BY JOHN FARMER was printed in Albany, New York by B.D. Packard and Company.
Also in this year Farmer revised and extended his 1829 A CATECHISM OF THE HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, FOR SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES, and created a 21-page list of PASTORS, DEACONS, AND MEMBERS OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN CONCORD, N.H., FROM NOV. 18, 1730, TO NOV. 18, 1830.
By this point Benjamin Dudley Emerson had become a member in full communion in his church at Hampstead, New Hampshire, allowed to participate with the others in the ceremony of the Lord’s Supper.
36. Note that this mapmaking John Farmer (1798-1859) is a different person from the New Hampshire genealogist John Farmer (1789-1838). HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
British actor Tyrone Power visited America, touring upstate New York.
Subsequent to the Embargo Acts and the War of 1812, and with the coming of the steamboat, many of America’s small harbor villages had been becoming remarkably impoverished. Into such quiet villages were beginning to come middle-class summer boarders, “rusticating” themselves where living was cheap and the locals eager to make themselves of service. Even the descendants of ship captains and merchants, living in large houses full of Chinoiserie, had begun to accept paying “guests.” However, these were merely cheap hideaways: as no coastline aesthetic had as yet been pioneered, such guests were not experiencing these quiet villages as “picturesque.” Tourism would not begin for real until after the US Civil War.
Theodore Dwight’s guidebook THE NORTHERN TRAVELLER identified Franconia Notch in New Hampshire as “where are iron works, and a curious profile on a mountain, called the Old Man of the Mountain.”
The tourist taking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire during this decade was encountering a district for which no accurate maps were as yet in existence, in which the farmers had not yet cleared off the old- growth forest, and along the roads of which there were only rude inns frequented by lumberjacks and peddlers. Soon, however, this tourism would become the dominant economic enterprise of the district, and would attract an extensive railroad system which would allow penetration to the heart of the primitive lands in but nine rail hours from downtown Boston. By the 1850s, a great contrast would have developed in the White Mountains, between local folk having low-paid jobs in the service industries, and the grand hotels in which wave after wave of elegant tourists played cards and drank champagne against a backdrop of majestic scenery. Class divisions were becoming exacerbated: there was a growing minority that could afford travel and leisure, but there was also a growing majority for whom being away from their work for a week would mean unemployment, and a slide into vagabondage or destitution. These rising tourists had, uniformly, familiarized themselves with the attractions of the region before ever they got there, by inspecting paintings or reproductions of paintings or engravings after paintings, by reading guidebooks, or by encountering the region through poetry. Examples of this tourist genre are Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Great Stone Face” and Thomas Cole’s “Notch of the White Mountains.” The major payoff offered to these tourists was that by means of their tour, they would be able to stake a claim to a more genteel status. They had demonstrated their good taste and their sensitivity. Standing in front of romantic scenery while quoting someone else’s poetry made one a Romantic. Buying a railroad ticket, and a travel trunk, and taking a hotel room, and taking meals in a hotel ballroom, and purchasing and perusing a guidebook, and purchasing and perhaps using an elegantly bound blank journal, were a commodification of gentility. Just as the sex industry offers sexual acts and fantasies in return for payment, so also this nascent tourist industry began to offer private experiences of the sublime. However, there is a difference between the sex industry and the tourist industry: in the case of tourism, dissimulation is required: HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
Nineteenth-century tourists (like twentieth-century tourists) liked to think of some things as “private,” apart from the world of buying and selling, and those experiences were precisely what tourism often sold. Some items of the tourist trade could be marketed openly. Stagecoach tickets, bathing machines, hotel rooms: Those things had prices and were appropriate for market transactions. But romantic scenery must not appear to be tainted by buying, selling, and speculating. It had to exist, as Emerson imagined it, in the world of the “poet.” It had to appear untouched by marketplace transactions.... One way or another, tourism lured tourists into a world where all experiences were for sale: culture and gentility for the Unitarian minister in the White Mountains, community and religion for the Methodist grocer on Martha’s Vineyard. Precisely because these products were intangible, because they disguised the commercial relationship, they were well calculated to overcome residual resistance to consumer relations. Tourists were able to see themselves, not as consumers purchasing goods, but as sensitive lovers of scenery or loyal members of a religious community. ...By the mid-nineteenth century, everyone with even a remote hope of achieving middle-class status understood that a vacation was as essential to that status as owning a piano and a carpet.... Tourism offered tourists satisfaction through acquisition (in this case, the acquisition of experiences), emotional fulfillment through spending money.... From its beginning, industrial capitalism has been able to encompass the buying and selling of cultural experiences that seem to be outside it, or even in direct conflict with it. In spite of how scenic tourists saw it, tourism did not protect nature from commercialization; it intensified the commodification of both art and nature. Whatever nostalgic tourists thought, tourism was no more a return to idyllic preindustrial class relations than were the mills of Fall River. That was the ultimate irony of the industry: not that people hid selfish motives behind lofty rhetoric (which is after all not much of a discovery), but that they inevitably bought what they did not want. Nineteenth-century tourists turned away from the allure of the marketplace to travel straight into the arms of the marketplace. And that is a route that has become well-traveled indeed in the past two centuries.
When Ralph Waldo Emerson published his famous essay on “Nature” in 1836 (four years after his own trip to the White Mountains), he used a phrase that articulated the new intangible “product” that was being marketed in scenic regions. Farmers owned the usual sort of property in land: “Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond.” But none of these farmers owned “the landscape.” That was “a property in the horizon,” as Emerson called it, “which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.” Emerson was arguing that the “poet’s” sort of property was not for sale. But he was wrong. By the 1830s, any Miller, Locke, or Manning with enough imagination and capital could speculate in such scenic property. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1831
Charles James Fox graduated from Dartmouth College. He would pursue the study of law, at first in the law school of Yale College, and afterward with Daniel Abbot, Esq. of Nashua (now Nashville), New Hampshire. At some point he would enter into law partnership with that attorney and eventually he would marry this partner’s daughter.
John Farmer (1798-1859)’s AN EDITION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, WITH QUESTIONS; DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF ACADEMIES AND DISTRICT SCHOOLS IN SAID STATE. Also, a new edition of Belknap, containing various Corrections and Illustrations of the first and second volumes of Dr. Belknap’s HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, and additional Facts and Notices of Persons and Events therein mentioned.
Construction, in Walpole, New Hampshire, of the Walpole Academy. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1832
Frederick Emerson’s THE NORTH AMERICAN ARITHMETIC. PART FIRST, CONTAINING ELEMENTARY LESSONS (Concord, New Hampshire: Marsh, Capen & Lyon; Boston: Lincoln and Edmands).37
ARITHMETIC, PART FIRST HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
January: Frederick Emerson’s THE NORTH AMERICAN ARITHMETIC. PART SECOND, UNITING ORAL AND WRITTEN EXERCISES (Concord, New Hampshire: Marsh, Capen & Lyon; Boston: Lincoln and Edmands)
ARITHMETIC, PART SECOND
37. A copy of this year’s edition of this often-printed school textbook would be in the personal library of Henry Thoreau, along with a copy of the 1845 edition of the corresponding KEY TO THE NORTH AMERICAN ARITHMETIC, PART SECOND AND PART THIRD. FOR THE USE OF TEACHERS. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
September: Nathaniel Hawthorne, on the last leg of his northern tour, passed through Crawford Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (where the brothers Ethan Allen Crawford and Thomas Jefferson Crawford kept their two inns).
The Rochester Canal and Railway Company completed a horse-car rail line between Rochester and Carthage.
During this month and the following one, Washington Irving accompanied Indian Commissioner Henry Leavitt Ellsworth on a tour up the Missouri River to the Osage Agency at Fort Gibson, and from there into the Pawnee hunting grounds. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1833
The 1st free public library in the United States was established, at Peterborough, New Hampshire.
The 1st of the “Bridgewater Treatises on the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man,” the Reverend Thomas Chalmers, D.D.’s ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. BRIDGEWATER TREATISES
Benjamin Dudley Emerson’s THE FIRST-CLASS READER: A SELECTION IN READING, FROM THE STANDARD BRITISH AND AMERICAN AUTHORS, IN PROSE AND VERSE. FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. (Boston, Russell, Odiorne, and Metcalf: Philadelphia, Hogan & Thompson: New-York, N. & J. White: Mobile, Sidney Smith: Windsor, Vt.: Ide & Goddard).38 THE FIRST-CLASS READER
Suggestions to Teachers Humility and Perseverance. An Allegory ------N.Y. Mirror Manners of Scottish Highlanders The Village Grave-Yard ------Greenwood Rural Life in England ------Irving Flowers ------Howitt The elevated Character of Woman ------Carter Contemplation of the Starry Heavens ------Chalmers Mountains ------Howitt The Ocean ------Drummond The Blind Teacher ------Griffin Philip of Mount Hope ------Exeter News Letter Comparison between the Turks and Persians ------Olivier Herculaneum and Pompeii ------Kotzebtu Works of the Coral Insects ------Universal Review The Union of the States ------D. Webster Wild Horses ------T. Flint National Recollections of the Foundation of National Character ------E. Everett Passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge ------Jefferson The Emigrant’s Abode in Ohio ------T. Flint Mont Blanc in the Gleam of Sunset ------Griscom Great Effects result from Little Causes ------Porter Mount Etna ------London Encyclopædia The Ivy ------Drummond The Pleasures of Religion ------S. Smith Sabbath Evening ------Knox 38. A copy of this would be found in the personal library of Henry David Thoreau. Since it was printed in 1833, it could not be a leftover from his own childhood education in Concord, and since it is not college-level reading, it could not be from his period as a college student. It would therefore be –most likely– a text used at the school of the Thoreau brothers in Concord? I hesitate to think that because in looking at the nature of the extracts in this volume, I am appalled, considering a large part of the materials as inappropriate to offer to any who might be misled. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
Christmas in England ------Irving Sports of New Year’s Day ------Paulding Anecdote of Sir Matthew Hale ------Anon. Scene from the Poor Gentleman Troth and Falsehood. An Allegory ------Johnson The Escape ------Miss Sedgwick Escape from a Panther ------Cooper The Dead Sea ------Scott Reception of Columbus on his Return from Spain ------Irving Extract from the Lives of the Apostles ------Greenwood The Danger of a Military Spirit ------Hopkinson The Mystery of Life ------Dewey Close of Mr. Brougham’s Speech on the Reform Bill Revolutionary Anecdote ------Anon. Heroism of a Physician ------Mad. De Genlis Stop a Moment ------Anon. Funeral at 8ea ------Anon. Imlac’s Description of a Poet ------Johnson The Three Kingdoms of Nature ------Bingley Reflections on the Moslem Dominion in Spain ------Irving Surrender of Grenada hy the Moors to Ferdinand and Isabella ------Ibid. Early Recollections ------New Monthly Magazine The American in England ------Irving The Poetry of Ossian ------Howitt The Pleasures of Science ------Brougham Female Influence ------Gannett An Address to a Young Student ------Knox Studies of Nature ------Mudie The Love of our Country strengthened by the Observation of Nature ------Ibid. Hannah Lamond ------Wilson Fall and River of Niagara ------T. Flint Aurora Borealis Anecdote of Washington ------Anon. Story of Grant and Macpherson ------Anon. Adversity and Prosperity. An Allegory ------Moore Moral Effects of Intemperance ------Wayland Adams and Jefferson ------Wirt Character of Martin Luther ------Robertson Character of Samuel Adams ------Tudor Public Faith ------Ames Christian Benevolence ------Chalmers The Unbeliever ------Ibid. Recollections of Palestine ------N.A. Review Character of Jesus contrasted with that of Mahomet ------White Valley of Jehoshaphat ------Chateaubriand A Scene nearly two Centuries ago on the Hudson ------Irving Objects of Reading ------Christian Examiner Horrors of War ------Chalmers The Effect of the Manners of the Athenians ------Gillies Account of the Plague in London ------Galt Rural Occupations favorable to Devotion ------Buckminster Description of the Speedwell Mine in England ------Silliman HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Transport ------Anon. Reflections on the Return of Spring ------Alison Instability of Earthly Things ------Hervey Advice to the Young ------Channing Immortality the Reward of Virtue ------Lindsay Bring Flowers ------Mrs. Hemans The Burial Place ------Bryant The Incarnation ------Milman Roar of the Sea ------Watt Salmon River ------Brainard Time ------Mardon The Coral Insect ------Mrs. Sigourney Opening of the Sixth Seal ------T. Gray, Jun. To the Eagle ------Percival Passage of the ned Sea ------Heber Belshazzar ------Croly Christ in the Tempest ------Whittier Sabbath Morning ------Pinney The Knell of Time ------Anon. On Laying the Corner-Stone of the Monument of Mrs. Washington ------Mrs. Sigourney The Sunbeam ------Mrs. Heman Ode ------Bird A Hebrew Tale ------Mrs. Sigourney Weep not for the Dead ------B.B. Thatcher Night ------Montgomery Poetry ------Percival The Dying Boy ------Anon. Sonnet ------Bryant Sailor’s Funeral ------Mrs. Sigourney New-England’s Dead ------Mc Lellan Napoleon Dying ------Macarthy Hymn of the Moravian Nuns at the Consecration of Pulaski’s Banner ------Longfellow The Child of Earth ------Mrs. Norton On visiting a Scene of Childhood ------Blackwood’s Magazine Autumn Woods ------Bryant The Rivulet ------Ibid. The Evening Wind ------Ibid. Autumn ------Longfellow Scottish Public Worship ------Grahame To the North Star ------Anon. Daybreak ------Dana Alpine Flowers ------Mrs. Sigourney Incomprehensibility of God ------Miss Townsend Ruins of Babylon ------Husenbeth Darkness. A Dream ------Byron The Philosopher’s Scales ------Miss J. Taylor A Mother’s Death ------Crabbe A Voice from the Wine Press ------Miss Gould To-morrow ------Cotton Time ------White The Storm ------Anon. Twilight ------Halleck HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
To Tranquillity ------Coleridge To a Cloud ------Bryant The Vulture of the Alps ------Anon. The Arctic Dove ------Bowles The Convict Ship ------Hervey
Emerson would be giving his Hampstead hometown in New Hampshire beaucoup money (evidently out of the proceeds for the many, many bestselling school textbooks he would create over a lifetime) — and let me tell you, those hometown folks would just really really be admiring him and respecting him for that: The man who publishes a book for common school use wields a mighty influence. The character of his book operates upon the mind when it is most susceptible of bias. It is the duty of the people then to look into the character of the instruments which aid in forming the most lasting impressions the youthful mind ever HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
receives. I believe no other town has the honor of being the birthplace of men whose school books have been so universally approved and adopted. This fact, together with the esteem with which we have always regarded them, must be my apology for alluding to what at first sight might not seem strictly appropriate to the occasion. Our fathers had not the advantages which we enjoy. The town in 1750 contained but one district, and according to the terms of the vote the school was to be sustained only in the summer season. Its advantages could not, therefore. have been extensive. The great distance must have excluded most of the smaller children, and the duties of the farm and the dairy in the busiest season of the year must have deprived many of the elder children from attending. The first attempts in other parts of New England to establish schools were attended by similar inconveniences, and produced only the same limited advantages. But from this small germ has grown up around us our strongest bulwark of defense. It is the cause of our unexampled prosperity. In vain will bigotry and infidelity attempt to undermine our security while our system of common schools is cherished as one of the efficient aids to religion and national prosperity. The foundation of all prosperity is in an enlightened community. An ignorant people, though inhabiting the most favored land on earth, soon sinks into insignificance. Our extended seacoast invites the merchant to traverse the ocean for trade with every clime. Our fertile valleys have given employment to the agriculturist. Our numerous waterfalls have attracted the enterprising manufacturer. “Cities spring up like exhalations under the magic touch of his wand, and the hum of machinery arises out of the midst of a thrifty, industrious and happy people.” The majestic plains and rivers of the west have collected adventurers from every part of the world. Our country exhibits to other nations the unexampled rise and prosperity of a free, self-governed and educated people. The common school system has been one of the most effective means in producing these magic changes. Its benefits and its inevitable results are arguments which come directly home to the hearts and understandings of a great body of people. To the foresight and wisdom of the Pilgrim we are indebted for this rich legacy. With what care and anxiety then should we cherish it, so that we may hand it down to those who shall come after us, not only untarnished, but in our hands made the instrument of increased good. Time forbids indulging in any further reflections to which so fruitful a subject invites our attention. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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— Harriette Eliza Noyes, A MEMORIAL OF THE TOWN OF HAMPSTEAD, NEW HAMPSHIRE. Boston: George B. Reed, 1899 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1834
Summer: In New Hampshire, in the Sanborns’ Hampton Falls farmhouse during a sudden summer storm, a blue-white flash filled the upstairs back bedroom in which Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, age 2, was playing with his ball and stick. Sarah Sanborn rushed up the stairs fearing the worst only to discover her little brother with stick raised high, proclaiming that the flash and the bam had been his doing.
October: Salma Hale was admitted to the New Hampshire bar.
James Fenimore Cooper purchased a family seat at Otsego, New York.
Frederick Emerson’s THE NORTH AMERICAN ARITHMETIC. PART THIRD, FOR ADVANCED SCHOLARS (Concord, New Hampshire: Marsh, Capen & Lyon; Boston: Lincoln and Edmands). ARITHMETIC, PART THIRD ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM
Thomas B. Laighton, a businessman of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, purchased Appledore Island, Cedar Island, Malaga Island, and Smuttynose Island of the Isles of Shoals from Captain Samuel Haley, resident upon Smuttynose. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1835
Charles James Fox was appointed solicitor of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire.
Samuel Bemis began to build an inn at Hart’s Location in the Crawford Notch area of New Hampshire.
To the west of the Franconia Notch, in the White Mountains, the Lafayette House hotel was opened.
The Reverend Professor Elisha Mitchell of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill established that the peak of Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina was 6,684 feet, higher if not more spectacular than Mount Washington in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, in fact the highest point in the United States of America east of the Mississippi River. (Or, at least, he would suppose he had established this until Senator Thomas Clingman would allege that he had clambered up the wrong peak and that the real Mt. Mitchell stood at 6,941 feet!)
A church had been organized in the rural district that would become Durham, North Carolina and in 1832 an acre of ground with a building on it had been donated by William R. Herndon. At this point the church building was torched by Jefferson Dillard, who left for an unknown destination.
Thomas Cole addressed the Catskills Lyceum on the subject of American scenery, expressing hope that people who were acquiring new wealth and new social status could be trained to the appreciation of romantic scenery. These nouveaux riches had been “consumed in the low pursuit of avarice, or the gaudy frivolities of fashion,” and so they would need a transfusion of “a taste for scenery” to remove from them their “meager utilitarianism” and from the “sordid tendencies of modern civilization.” They needed to be transformed to accept the social values of the already established gentry, and the cure he proposed was tourism.
Cole remarked that “Whether we see [the Connecticut River] at Haverhill, Northampton, or Hartford, it still possesses that gentle aspect; and the imagination can scarcely conceive Arcadian vales more lovely or more peaceful than the valley of the Connecticut-its villages are rural places where trees overspread every dwelling, and the fields upon its margin have the richest verdure.”
August 30, Sunday: Felix Mendelssohn arrived in Leipzig to take up directorship of the Gewandhaus Orchestra.
Friend Angelina Emily Grimké wrote to William Lloyd Garrison informing him that she had made a commitment to abolitionism.
Friend John Greenleaf Whittier and the Englishman George Thompson were egged and stoned in Concord, New Hampshire, on account of their having favored “the niggers” in a speech they had just made in Plymouth, New Hampshire:
“I maintained the testimony and resisted not — I gave place unto wrath.”39
39. To the people who were engaging in the antislavery struggle, this year of 1835 would become known as “the mob year.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
One of the thrown stones injured Whittier’s leg. Afterward, the two stopped off at an inn where the landlord asked if they had heard of the ruckus. As they left, stepping into their chaise, Whittier introduced Thompson, then Thompson introduced Whittier, and they drove off with the innkeeper “standing, mouth wide open, gazing after us.” However, Whittier would comment repeatedly, elsewhere, that one cannot expect “that because men are reformers, they will therefore be better than other people.” [According to Russel B. Nye’s FETTERED FREEDOM: CIVIL LIBERTIES AND THE SLAVERY CONTROVERSY, 1830-1860 (Michigan: Michigan State UP, 1963, page 203), it was Whittier and Samuel May and they were stoned. Would this have been a separate occasion, in New-York earlier, or in Boston later?]
I was mobbed in Concord, N.H., in company with George Thompson, afterwards member of the British Parliament, and narrowly escaped from great danger. I kept Thompson, whose life was hunted for, concealed in our lonely farm-house for two weeks. I was in Boston during the great mob in Washington Street, soon after, and was threatened with personal violence.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 30 of 8M / Both Meetings were solid & very good ones to me, & after the Afternoon Meeting Attended the funeral of John H Barbers Child - in both Meetings & at the funeral Father had short testimonies & I thought at the funeral was particularly favoured. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
October 21, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson made a note in his journal about an initial visit to his home in Concord by Bronson Alcott:
Last Saturday night came hither Mr Alcott & spent the Sabbath with me. A wise man, simple, superior to display. & drops the best things as quietly as the least. Every man, he said, is a Revelation, & ought to write his Record. But few with the pen.
That night, just back in Boston from his visit to Emerson in Concord, Alcott would be visiting William Lloyd Garrison in the jail on Leverett Street. (What was Garrison doing in the Boston lockup? –Read on.)
Having met with brickbats in Concord, New Hampshire and garbage, raw eggs, and rocks in Lowell MA, and having been seriously injured by being hit in the face with a rock in Ohio, and having been denounced by President Andrew Jackson in a message to Congress, the English anti-slavery reformer George Thompson had been reduced to making his return plans in secret because of concern that pro-slavery activists would attempt to kidnap him (presumably to tar and feather him).40 He had fled Boston Harbor in a rowboat in order to board a British ship leaving for New Brunswick.
40. Safely back in England, George Thompson would be elected to Parliament. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
Back ashore, in what would come to be known as the “Gentlemen’s Riot” carried out by a downtown Boston group of swells associated with State Street and Milk Street which sometimes referred to itself as “the broadcloth mob,” what had been planned as a protest against a scheduled lecture by Thompson on behalf of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society transformed itself into a mob of several thousand persons which stormed the meeting while the women prayed for the protection of God. They came uncomfortably close to tarring and feathering the substitute speaker.41
STATE STREET, BOSTON
This substitute, Garrison, was saved only by the intervention of Boston’s mayor, who –despite the fact that there was a mayoral election coming up in December– dealt personally with this proslavery mob.
To the people who were engaging in the antislavery struggle, this year of 1835 would become known as “the mob year.” The riot against Garrison in Boston was far from the only one. The North was having what Grimsted refers to as a “riot conversation” with the South, in an attempt to reassure it that its institution of human enslavement would be tolerated, and that opposition to this institution would not be allowed to interfere with the flow of business. There was therefore also an assault on this day upon Henry B. Stanton in Newport, and an assault upon Samuel May in Montpelier. No great personal injury or property damage resulted, as that was not the point: PAGE 27 GRIMSTED: The day’s riotous work was the North’s final offering of works to prove the sincerity of its stream of words against abolition ... few in the South noted how little damage to property and none to people these careful mobs perpetrated.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould recorded in his journal: 4th day 21 of 10 M / We rode to Portsmouth to attend the Select Meeting - After which we went to Aunt Stantons & spent the Afternoon with her in sympathy with her lonely situation
41. This mob was witnessed by William Cooper Nell, who, being himself a person of color, of course was unable to interfere. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
At this annual meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society at the Anti-Slavery Hall, the women were trapped in rooms on the 3d floor as the mob roamed the corridors of the building. The mayor of Boston belatedly arrived with a group of policemen and got the women to disperse, but Garrison was in his office and was left alone in the building with the mob. When he crawled through the back window and jumped down into the street, someone saw him and the mob gave chase. He was cornered in a 2d-floor room above a carpenter’s shop into which he had dodged, whereupon there was a wrestling match to see whether he would be flung from the window, or into a tar kettle that had been prepared. The police jailed for the night for his own safety, in the jail on Leverett Street, and he inscribed on the wall there that his offense was “preaching the abominable and dangerous doctrine that all men have been created equal.” Here is a fuller account of the action: It was in the midst of such intense and widespread excitement that Boston called its meeting to abolish the Abolitionists. It was the month of August, and the heat of men’s passions was as great as the heat of the August sun. The moral atmosphere of the city was so charged with inflammable gases that the slightest spark would have sufficed to produce an explosion. The Abolitionists felt this and carried themselves the while with unusual circumspection. They deemed it prudent to publish an address to neutralize the falsehoods with which they were assailed by their enemies. The address drawn up by Garrison for the purpose was thought “too fiery for the present time,” by his more cautious followers and was rejected. The Liberator office had already been threatened in consequence of a fiery article by the editor, denouncing the use of Faneuil Hall for the approaching pro-slavery meeting. It seemed to the unawed and indignant champion of liberty that it were “better that the winds should scatter it in fragments over the whole earth — better that an earthquake should engulf it — than that it should be used for so unhallowed and detestable a purpose!” The anti- abolition feeling of the town had become so bitter and intense that Henry E. Benson, then clerk in the anti-slavery office, writing on the 19th of the month, believed that there were persons in Boston, who would assassinate George Thompson in broad daylight, and doubted whether Garrison or Samuel J. May would be safe in Faneuil Hall on the day of the meeting, and what seemed still more significant of the inflamed state of the public mind, was the confidence with which he predicted that a mob would follow the meeting. The wild-cat-like spirit was in the air — in the seething heart of the populace. The meeting was held August 21st, in the old cradle of liberty. To its call alone fifteen hundred names were appended. It was a Boston audience both as to character and numbers, an altogether imposing affair, over whom the mayor of the city presided and before whom two of the most consummate orators of the commonwealth fulmined against the Abolitionists. One of their hearers, a young attorney of twenty-four, who listened to Peleg Sprague and Harrison Gray Otis that day, described sixteen years afterward the latter and the effects produced by him on that audience. Our young attorney vividly recalled how “‘Abolitionist’ was linked with contempt, in the silver tones of Otis, and all the charms that a divine eloquence and most felicitous diction could throw around a bad cause were given it; HDT WHAT? INDEX
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the excited multitude seemed actually ready to leap up beneath the magic of his speech. It would be something, if one must die, to die by such a hand — a hand somewhat worthy and able to stifle anti-slavery, if it could be stifled. The orator was worthy of the gigantic task attempted; and thousands crowded before him, every one of their hearts melted by that eloquence, beneath which Massachusetts had bowed, not unworthily, for more than thirty years.” Here is a specimen of the sort of goading which the wild-cat-like spirit of the city got from the orators. It is taken from the speech of Peleg Sprague. The orator is paying his respects to George Thompson, “an avowed emissary” “a professed agitator,” who “comes here from the dark and corrupt institutions of Europe to enlighten us upon the rights of man and the moral duties of our own condition. Received by our hospitality, he stands here upon our soil, protected by our laws, and hurls firebrands, arrows, and death into the habitations of our neighbors and friends, and brothers; and when he shall have kindled a conflagration which is sweeping in desolation over our land, he has only to embark for his own country, and there look serenely back with indifference or exultation upon the widespread ruin by which our cities are wrapt in flames, and our garments rolled in blood.” The great meeting was soon a thing of the past but not so its effects. The echoes of Otis and Sprague did not cease at its close. They thrilled in the air, they thrilled long afterward in the blood of the people. When the multitude dispersed Mischief went out into the streets of the city with them. Wherever afterward they gathered Mischief made one in their midst. Mischief was let loose, Mischief was afoot in the town. The old town was no place for the foreign emissary, neither was it a safe place for the arch-agitator. On the day after the meeting, Garrison and his young wife accordingly retreated to her father’s home at Brooklyn, Conn., where the husband needed not to be jostling elbows with Mistress Mischief, and her pals. Garrison’s answer to the speeches of Otis and Sprague was in his sternest vein. He is sure after reading them that, “there is more guilt attaching to the people of the free States from the continuance of slavery, than those in the slave States.” At least he is ready to affirm upon the authority of Orator Sprague, “that New England is as really a slave-holding section of the republic as Georgia or South Carolina.” Sprague, he finds, “in amicable companionship and popular repute with thieves and adulterers; with slaveholders, slavedealers, and slave-destroyers; ... with the disturbers of the public peace; with the robbers of the public mail; with ruffians who insult, pollute, and lacerate helpless women; and with conspirators against the lives and liberties of New England citizens.” To Otis who was then nearly seventy years of age Garrison addressed his rebuke in tones of singular solemnity. It seemed to him that the aged statesman had transgressed against liberty “under circumstances of peculiar criminality.” “Yet at this solemn period,” the reprobation of the prophet ran, “you have not scrupled, nay, you have been HDT WHAT? INDEX
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ambitious, to lead and address an excited multitude, in vindication of all imaginable wickedness, embodied in one great system of crime and blood — to pander to the lusts and desires of the robbers of God and his poor — to consign over to the tender mercies of cruel taskmasters, multitudes of guiltless men, women, and children — and to denounce as an ‘unlawful and dangerous association’ a society whose only object is to bring this nation to repentance, through the truth as it is in Jesus.” These audacious and iconoclastic performances of the reformer were not exactly adapted to turn from him the wrath of the idol worshipers. They more likely added fuel to the hot anger burning in Boston against him. Three weeks passed after his departure from the city, and his friends did not deem it safe for him to return. Toward the end of the fourth week of his enforced absence, against which he was chafing not a little, an incident happened in Boston which warned him to let patience have its perfect work. It was on the night of September 17th that the dispositions of the city toward him found grim expression in a gallows erected in front of his house at 23 Brighton street. This ghastly reminder that the fellow-citizens of the editor of the Liberator continued to take a lively interest in him, “was made in real workmanship style, of maple joist five inches through, eight or nine feet high, for the accommodation of two persons.” Garrison and Thompson were the two persons for whom these brave accommodations were prepared. But as neither they nor their friends were in a mood to have trial made of them, the intended occupants consented to give Boston a wide berth, and to be somewhat particular that they did not turn in with her while the homicidal fit lasted. This editing his paper at long range, and this thought of life and safety Garrison did not at all relish. They grew more and more irksome to his fearless and earnest spirit. For his was a “pine-and-fagot” Abolitionism that knew not the fear of men or their wrath. But now he must needs have a care for the peace of mind of his young wife, who was, within a few months, to give birth to a child. And her anxiety for him was very great. Neither was the anxiety of devoted friends and followers to be lightly disregarded. All of which detained the leader in Brooklyn until the 25th of the month, when the danger signals seemed to have disappeared. Whereupon he set out immediately for his post in Boston to be at the head of his forces. He found the city in one of those strange pauses of popular excitement, which might signify the ebb of the tide or only the retreat of the billows. He was not inclined to let the anti-Abolition agitation subside so soon, before it had carried on its flood Abolition principles to wider fields and more abundant harvests in the republic. Anxious lest the cat- like temper of the populace was falling into indifference and apathy, he and his disciples took occasion to prod it into renewed wakefulness and activity. The instruments used for this purpose were anti-slavery meetings and the sharp goad of his Liberator editorials. The city was possessed with the demon of slavery, and its foaming at the mouth was the best of all signs HDT WHAT? INDEX
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that the Abolition exorcism was working effectively. So, in between the glittering teeth and the terrible paws was thrust the maddening goad, and up sprang the mighty beast horrible to behold. One of these meetings was the anniversary of the formation of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society which fell on October 14th. The ladies issued their notice, engaged a hall, and invited George Thompson to address them. Now the foreign emissary was particularly exasperating to Boston sensibility on the subject of slavery. He was the veritable red rag to the pro- slavery bull. The public announcement, therefore, that he was to speak in the city threw the public mind into violent agitation. The Gazette and the Courier augmented the excitement by the recklessness with which they denounced the proposed meeting, the former promising to Thompson a lynching, while the latter endeavored to involve his associates who were to the “manner born” in the popular outbreak, which was confidently predicted in case the “foreign vagrant” wagged his tongue at the time appointed. Notwithstanding the rage of press and people the meeting was postponed through no willingness on the part of the ladies, but because of the panic of the owners of the hall lest their property should be damaged or destroyed in case of a riot. The ladies, thereupon, appointed three o’clock in the afternoon of October 21st as the time, and the hall adjoining the Anti- Slavery Office, at 46 Washington street, as the place where they would hold their adjourned meeting. This time they made no mention of Mr. Thompson’s addressing them, merely announcing several addresses. In fact, an address from Mr. Thompson, in view of the squally outlook, was not deemed expedient. To provide against accidents and disasters, he left the city on the day before the meeting. But this his enemies did not know. They confidently expected that he was to be one of the speakers. An inflammatory handbill distributed on the streets at noon of the 21st seemed to leave no doubt of this circumstance in the pro- slavery portion of the city. The handbill referred to ran as follows: THOMPSON, THE ABOLITIONIST! That infamous foreign scoundrel, THOMPSON, will hold forth this afternoon at the Liberator office. No. 48 Washington street. The present is a fair opportunity for the friends of the Union to snake Thompson out! It will be a contest between the Abolitionists and the friends of the Union. A purse of $100 has been raised by a number of patriotic citizens to reward the individual who shall first lay violent hands on Thompson, so that he may be brought to the tar-kettle before dark. Friends of the Union, be vigilant! Boston, Wednesday, 12 o’clock. That Wednesday forenoon Garrison spent at the anti-slavery office, little dreaming of the peril which was to overtake him in that very spot in the afternoon. He went home to an early dinner, since his wife was a member of the society, and he HDT WHAT? INDEX
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himself was set down for an address. As he wended his way homeward, Mischief and her gang were afoot distributing the aforesaid handbills “in the insurance offices, the reading- rooms, all along State street, in the hotels, bar-rooms, etc.,” and scattering it “among mechanics at the North End, who were mightily taken with it.” Garrison returned about a half hour before the time appointed for the meeting. He found a small crowd of about a hundred individuals collected in front of the building where the hall was situated, and on ascending to the hall more of the same sort, mostly young men, choking the access to it. They were noisy, and Garrison pushed his way through them with difficulty. As he entered the place of meeting and took his seat among the ladies, twenty had already arrived, the gang of young rowdies recognized him and evinced this by the exclamation: “That’s Garrison!” The full significance of the crowd just without the hall did not seem to have occurred to the man whom they had identified. He did not know that they were the foam blown from the mouth of a great mob at the moment filling the streets in the neighborhood of the building where he sat with such serenity of spirit. His wife who had followed him from their home saw what Garrison did not see. The crowd of a hundred had swelled to thousands. It lay in a huge irregular cross, jammed in between the buildings on Washington street, the head lowering in front of the anti-slavery office, the foot reaching to the site where stood Joy building, now occupied by the Rogers, the right arm stretching along Court street to the Court House, and the left encircling the old State House, City Hall and Post- office then, in a gigantic embrace. All hope of urging her way through that dense mass was abandoned by Mrs. Garrison, and a friend, Mr. John E. Fuller, escorted her to his home, where she passed the night. Meantime the atmosphere upstairs at the hall began to betoken a fast approaching storm. The noises ominously increased on the landing just outside. The door of the hall was swung wide open and the entrance filled with rioters. Garrison, all unconscious of danger, walked over to these persons and remonstrated in his grave way with them in regard to the disturbance which they were producing, winding up with a characteristic bit of pleasantry: “Gentlemen,” said he, “perhaps you are not aware that this is a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, called and intended exclusively for ladies, and those only who have been invited to address them. Understanding this fact you will not be so rude and indecorous as to thrust your presence upon this meeting.” But he added, “If, gentlemen, any of you are ladies in disguise — why only apprise me of the fact, give me your names, and I will introduce you to the rest of your sex, and you can take seats among them accordingly.” The power of benignity over malignity lasted a few moments after this little speech, when the situation changed rapidly from bad to worse. “The tumult continually increased,” says an eye-witness, “with horrible execrations, howling, stamping, and finally shrieking with rage. They seemed not to dare to enter, notwithstanding their fury, but mounted on each HDT WHAT? INDEX
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other’s shoulders, so that a row of hostile heads appeared over the slight partition, of half the height of the wall which divides the society’s rooms from the landing place. We requested them to allow the door to be shut; but they could not decide as to whether the request should be granted, and the door was opened and shut with violence, till it hung useless from its hinges.” Garrison thinking that his absence might quiet these perturbed spirits and so enable the ladies to hold their meeting without further molestation volunteered at this juncture to the president of the society to retire from the hall unless she desired him to remain. She did not wish him to stay but urged him to go at once not only for the peace of the meeting but for his own safety. Garrison thereupon left the hall meaning at the time to leave the building as well, but egress by the way of the landing and the stairs, he directly perceived was impossible, and did what seemed the next best thing, entered the anti- slavery office, separated from the hall by a board partition. Charles C. Burleigh accompanied him within this retreat. The door between the hall and the office was securely locked, and Garrison with that marvelous serenity of mind, which was a part of him, busied himself immediately with writing to a friend an account of the scenes which were enacting in the next room. The tempest had begun in the streets also. The mob from its five thousand throats were howling “Thompson! Thompson!” The mayor of the city, Theodore Lyman, appeared upon the scene, and announced to the gentlemen of property and standing, who were thus exercising their vocal organs, that Mr. Thompson was not at the meeting, was not in the city. But the mayor was a modern Canute before the sea of human passion, which was rushing in over law and authority. He besought the rioters to disperse, but he might as well have besought the waves breaking on Nastasket Beach to disperse. Higher, higher rose the voices; fiercer, fiercer waxed the multitude; more and more frightful became the uproar. The long-pent-up excitement of the city and its hatred of Abolitionists had broken loose at last and the deluge had come. The mayor tossed upon the human inundation as a twig on a mountain stream, and with him for the nonce struggled helplessly the police power of the town also. Upstairs in the hall the society and its president are quite as powerless as the mayor and the police below. Miss Mary S. Parker, the president, is struggling with the customary opening exercises. She has called the meeting to order, read to the ladies some passages from the Bible, and has lifted up her voice in prayer to the All Wise and Merciful One “for direction and succor, and the forgiveness of enemies and revilers.” It is a wonderful scene, a marvelous example of Christian heroism, for in the midst of the hisses and threats and curses of the rioters, the prayer of the brave woman rose clear and untremulous. But now the rioters have thrown themselves against the partition between the landing-place and the hall. They are trying to break it down; now, they have partially succeeded. In another moment they have thrown themselves against the door of the office where Garrison is HDT WHAT? INDEX
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locked. The lower panel is dashed in. Through the opening they have caught sight of their object, Garrison, serenely writing at his desk. “There he is! That’s Garrison! Out with the scoundrel!” and other such words of recognition and execration, burst from one and another of the mob. The shattering of the partition, the noise of splitting and ripping boards, the sharp crash caused by the shivering of the office door, the loud and angry outcries of the rioters warn the serene occupant of the office that his position has become one of extreme peril. But he does not become excited. His composure does not forsake him. Instead of attempting to escape, he simply turns to his friend, Burleigh, with the words, “You may as well open the door, and let them come in and do their worst.” But fortunately, Burleigh was in no such extremely non-resistant mood. The advent of the mayor and the constables upon the scene at this point rescued Garrison from immediately falling into the hands of the mob, who were cleared out of the hall and from the stairway. Now the voice of the mayor was heard urging the ladies to go home as it was dangerous to remain; and now the voice of Maria Weston Chapman, replying: “If this is the last bulwark of freedom, we may as well die here as anywhere.” The ladies finally decided to retire, and their exit diverted, while the operation lasted, the attention of the huge, cat-like creature from their object in the anti-slavery office. When the passing of the ladies had ceased, the old fury of the mob against Garrison returned. “Out with him!” “Lynch him!” rose in wild uproar from thousands in the streets. But again the attention of the huge, cat-like creature was diverted from its object in the second story of the building before which it was lashing itself into frenzy. This time it was the anti-slavery sign which hung from the rooms of the society over the sidewalk. The mob had caught sight of it, and directly set up a yell for it. The sensation of utter helplessness in the presence of the multitude seemed at this juncture to return to the chief magistrate of the city. It was impossible to control the cataract-like passions of the rioters. He heard their awful roar for the sign. The din had risen to terrific proportions. The thought of what might happen next appalled him. The mob might begin to bombard the sign with brickbats, and from the sign pass to the building, and from the building to the constables, and then — but the mayor glanced not beyond, for he had determined to appease the fury of the mob by throwing down to it the hateful sign. A constable detached it, and hurled it down to the rioters in the street. But by the act the mayor had signified that the rule of law had collapsed, and the rule of the mob had really begun. When the rioters had wreaked their wrath upon the emblem of freedom, they were in the mood for more violence. The appetite for destruction, it was seen, had not been glutted; only whetted. Garrison’s situation was now extremely critical. He could no longer remain where he was, for the mob would invade the building and hunt him like hounds from cellar to garret. He must leave the building without delay. To escape from the front was out of the question. A way HDT WHAT? INDEX
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of escape must, therefore, be found in the rear. All of these considerations the mayor and Garrison’s friends urged upon him. The good man fell in with this counsel, and, with a faithful friend, proceeded to the rear of the building, where from a window he dropped to a shed, but in doing so was very nearly precipitated to the ground. After picking himself up he passed into a carpenter’s shop, meaning to let himself down into Wilson’s Lane, now Devonshire street, but the myriad-eyed mob, which was searching every portion of the building for their game, espied him at this point, and with that set up a great shout. The workmen came to the aid of the fugitive by closing the door of the carpenter’s shop in the face of his pursuers. The situation seemed desperate. Retreat from the front was cut off; escape from the rear anticipated and foiled. Garrison perceived the futility of any further attempts to elude the mob, and proposed in his calm way to deliver himself up to them. But his faithful Achates, John Reid Campbell, advised him that it was his duty to avoid the mob as long as it was possible to do so. Garrison thereupon made a final effort to get away. He retreated up stairs, where his friend and a lad got him into a corner of the room and tried to conceal his whereabouts by piling some boards in front of him. But, by that time, the rioters had entered the building, and within a few moments had broken into the room where Garrison was in hiding. They found Mr. Reid, and demanded of him where Garrison was. But Reid firmly refused to tell. They then led him to a window, and exhibited him to the mob in the Lane, advising them that it was not Garrison, but Garrison’s and Thompson’s friend, who knows where Garrison is, but refuses to tell. A shout of fierce exultation from below greeted this announcement. Almost immediately afterward, Garrison was discovered and dragged furiously to the window, with the intention of hurling him thence to the pavement. Some of the rioters were for doing this, while others were for milder measures. “Don’t let us kill him outright!” they begged. So his persecutors relented, coiled a rope around his body instead, and bade him descend to the street. The great man was never greater than at that moment. With extraordinary meekness and benignity he saluted his enemies in the street. From the window he bowed to the multitude who were thirsting for his destruction, requesting them to wait patiently, for he was coming to them. Then he stepped intrepidly down the ladder raised for the purpose, and into the seething sea of human passion. Garrison must now have been speedily torn to pieces had he not been quickly seized by two or three powerful men, who were determined to save him from falling into the hands of the mob. They were men of great muscular strength, but the muscular strength of two or three giants would have proven utterly unequal to the rescue, and this Mr. Garrison’s deliverers evidently appreciated. For while they employed their powerful arms, they also employed stratagem as well to effect their purpose. They shouted anon as they fought their way through the excited throng, “He is an American! He shan’t be hurt!” and other such words which divided HDT WHAT? INDEX
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the mind of the mob, arousing among some sympathy for the good man. By this means he was with difficulty got out of Wilson’s lane into State street, in the rear of the old State House. The champion was now on historic ground, ground consecrated by the blood of Crispus Attucks and his fellow-martyrs sixty-five years before. His hat was lost, much of his clothing was stripped from his body, he was without his customary glasses, and was therefore practically blind. He could hear the awful clamor, the mighty uproar of the mob, but he could not distinguish them one from another, friend from foe. Nevertheless he “walked with head erect, calm countenance flashing eyes like a martyr going to the stake, full of faith and manly hope” according to the testimony of an eye-witness. Garrison himself has thrown light on the state of his mind during the ordeal. “The promises of God,” he afterward remembered, sustained his soul, “so that it was not only divested of fear, but ready to sing aloud for joy.” The news now reached the ears of the mayor that Garrison was in the hands of the mob. Thereupon the feeble but kindly magistrate began to act afresh the role of the twig in the mountain stream. He and his constables struggled helplessly in the human current rushing and raging around City Hall, the head and seat of municipal law and authority. Without the aid of private citizens Garrison must inevitably have perished in the commotions which presently reached their climax in violence and terror. He was in the rear of City Hall when the mayor caught up to him and his would-be rescuers. The mayor perceived the extremity of the situation, and said to the Faneuil Hall giants who had hold of Garrison, “Take him into my office,” which was altogether more easily said than done. For the rioters have raised the cry “to the Frog Pond with him!” Which order will be carried out, that of the magistrate or that of the mob? These were horrible moments while the two hung trembling in the balance. But other private citizens coming to the assistance of the mayor struck the scales for the moment in his favor, and Garrison was finally hustled, and thrust by main force into the south door of the City Hall and carried up to the mayor’s room. But the mob had immediately effected an entrance into the building through the north door and filled the lower hall. The mayor now addressed the pack, strove manfully in his feeble way to prevail upon the human wolves to observe order, to sustain the law and the honor of the city, he even intimated to them that he was ready to lay down his life on the spot to maintain the law and preserve order. Then he got out on the ledge over the south door and spoke in a similar strain to the mob on the street. But alas! he knew not the secret for reversing the Circean spell by which gentlemen of property and standing in the community had been suddenly transformed into a wolfish rabble. The increasing tumult without soon warned the authorities that what advantage the mayor may have obtained in the contest with the mob was only temporary and that their position was momentarily becoming more perilous and less tenable. It was impossible to say to what extreme of violence a multitude so infuriated would not go to get their HDT WHAT? INDEX
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prey. It seemed to the now thoroughly alarmed mayor that the mob might in their frenzy attack the City Hall to effect their purpose. There was one building in the city, which the guardians of the law evidently agreed could resist the rage of the populace, and that building was the jail. To this last stronghold of Puritan civilization the authorities and the powers that were, fell back as a dernier resort to save Garrison’s life. But even in this utmost pitch and extremity, when law was trampled in the streets, when authority was a reed shaken in a storm, when anarchy had drowned order in the bosom of the town, the Anglo-Saxon passion for legal forms asserted itself. The good man, hunted for his life, must forsooth be got into the only refuge which promised him security from his pursuers by a regular judicial commitment as a disturber of the peace. Is there anything at once so pathetic and farcical in the Universal history of mobs? Pathetic and farcical to be sure, but it was also well meant, and therefore we will not stop to quarrel with men who were equal to the perpetration of a legal fiction so full of the comedy and tragedy of civilized society. But enough — the municipal wiseacres having put their heads together and evolved the brilliant plan of committing the prophet as a disturber of the peace, immediately set about its execution, which developed in the sequence into a bird of altogether another color. For a more perilous and desperate device to preserve Garrison’s life could not well have been hit upon. How was he ever to be got out of the building and through that sea of ferocious faces surging and foaming around it. First then by disguising his identity by sundry changes in his apparel. He obtained a pair of trousers from one kindly soul, another gave him a coat, a third lent him a stock, a fourth furnished him a cap. A hack was summoned and stationed at the south door, a posse of constables drew up and made an open way from the door to it. Another hack was placed in readiness at the north door. The hack at the south door was only a ruse to throw the mob off the scent of their prey, while he was got out of the north door and smuggled into the other hack. Up to this point, the plan worked well, but the instant after Garrison had been smuggled into the hack he was identified by the mob, and then ensued a scene which defies description; no writer however skillful, may hope to reproduce it. The rioters rushed madly upon the vehicle with the cry: “Cut the traces! Cut the reins!” They flung themselves upon the horses, hung upon the wheels, dashed open the doors, the driver the while belaboring their heads right and left with a powerful whip, which he also laid vigorously on the backs of his horses. For a moment it looked as if a catastrophe was unavoidable, but the next saw the startled horses plunging at break-neck speed with the hack up Court street and the mob pursuing it with yells of baffled rage. Then began a thrilling, a tremendous race for life and Leverett street jail. The vehicle flew along Court street to Bodoin square, but the rioters, with fell purpose flew hardly less swiftly in its track. Indeed the pursuit of the pack was so close that the hackman did not dare HDT WHAT? INDEX
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to drive directly to the jail but reached it by a detour through Cambridge and Blossom streets. Even then the mob pressed upon the heels of the horses as they drew up before the portals of the old prison, which shut not an instant too soon upon the editor of the Liberator, who was saved from a frightful fate to use a Biblical phrase but by the skin of his teeth. Here the reformer safe from the wrath of his foes, was locked in a cell; and here, during the evening, with no abatement of his customary cheerfulness and serenity of spirit, he received several of his anxious friends, Whittier among them, whom through the grated bars he playfully accosted thus: “You see my accommodations are so limited, that I cannot ask you to spend the night with me.” That night in his prison cell, and on his rude prison bed, he slept the sleep of the just man, sweet and long: “When peace within the bosom reigns, And conscience gives th’ approving voice; Though bound the human form in chains. Yet can the soul aloud rejoice. “’Tis true, my footsteps are confined — I cannot range beyond this cell — But what can circumscribe my mind, To chain the winds attempt as well!” The above stanzas he wrote the next morning on the walls of his cell. Besides this one he made two other inscriptions there, to stand as memorabilia of the black drama enacted in Boston on the afternoon of October 21, 1835. After being put through the solemn farce of an examination in a court, extemporized in the jail, Garrison was discharged from arrest as a disturber of the peace! But the authorities, dreading a repetition of the scenes of the day before, prayed him to leave the city for a few days, which he did, a deputy sheriff driving him to Canton, where he boarded the train from Boston to Providence, containing his wife, and together they went thence to her father’s at Brooklyn, Conn. The apprehensions of the authorities in respect of the danger of a fresh attack upon him were unquestionably well founded, inasmuch as diligent search was made for him in all of the outgoing stages and cars from the city that morning. In this wise did pro-slavery, patriotic Boston translate into works her sympathy for the South. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1836
Summer: Ellery Channing made a solitary trip into the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
He went by stage to North Conway and walked up the Saco Valley toward Crawford Notch, riding part way in a farm wagon with Abel Crawford, whose family had given the Notch its name. Channing then took a stage to Ethan Crawford’s and Bethlehem, and the Lafayette House near the Great Stone Face. He passed through Franconia Notch on his way back to Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Karl Friedrich Schimper spent the summer near Bex in the Swiss Alps with his former university friend Louis Agassiz and Jean de Charpentier. Schimper, De Charpentier and possibly Ignaz Venetz convinced Agassiz that there had been a period of glaciation. THE SCIENCE OF 1836 OUR MOST RECENT GLACIATION HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1837
At the age of fifteen, William Rounseville Alger left work in the cotton mills to further his education. He would attend an academy in Pembroke, New Hampshire for two years, and then an academy in Lebanon, New Hampshire for another year.
The Crawford House, the inn built by Ethan Allan Crawford in Crawford Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, fell into debt and was taken over by Horace Fabyan, a Maine merchant who was investing in such venues in anticipation of the completion of the Atlantic and Saint Lawrence Railway. This railway was to pass only eight miles to the east of Mount Washington. By 1845 he would have built up the Crawford House to the point at which it was able to accommodate over a hundred guests at a time.
Charles James Fox was chosen as a representative to the state Legislature. He would be appointed in connection with Judge Joel Parker of Keene, New Hampshire and Mr. Samuel D. Bell of Manchester, New Hampshire to prepare for publication the REVISED STATUTES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. He would take a deep interest in the establishment of the New Hampshire Lunatic Asylum, of which he would be appointed a Director. He would be instrumental in carrying through the project for the extension of the Boston and Lowell Railroad into New Hampshire and would serve as the initial treasurer of the Nashua and Lowell Railroad. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1838
The Reverend William Henry Channing took up a Unitarian pastorate in Cincinnati, Ohio (he would resign in 1841 upon becoming aware that the Gospels were unreliable as history, concluding somehow from this technical detail that Christianity had not been ordained by God).
Charles James Fox became a member of the Unitarian Church in Nashua, New Hampshire (he would teach in its Sunday School).
The Countess Sarah of Concord (formerly “Rumford”) commissioned D.G. Lamont to paint from a sketch by William Lane an oil in which Count von Rumford gazed benevolently upon his only legitimate child while the daughter fondles her favorite lap-dog. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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June 21: Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts continued his speech before the US House of Representatives on the expansive topic of Texas for a 7th day.
At about this day, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers was taking responsibility for Concord, New Hampshire’s Herald of Freedom.
September 21, Friday: At the St. Louis dock, Dr. John Emerson and his bride, and their slaves Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott, transferred to the steamboat Gypsy.
The balloon of the intrepid master Boston goldbeater and aeronaut Louis Lauriat graced the skies above historic Concord, New Hampshire. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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September 22, Saturday: Shortly after the total solar eclipse of the afternoon of September 18th had been visible in New England, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers published the following article in Concord, New HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Hampshire’s anti-slavery paper Herald of Freedom:
ECLIPSE OF THE SUN. We had a fine opportunity, on our way from Plymouth to Concord, to witness this grand conjunction of the mighty orbs of the sky –this conflict of the “greater and lesser lights”– the lesser obscuring the greater, as is sometimes the case among sublunary bodies, by force of position. The glorious sun was indeed “sick almost to doomsday,” –and it was pitiful to see his regal distress, and with what dignity and decency he drew around him his robe of clouds, to hide his disaster and shame from the smoked-glass gaze of mortals. The atmosphere and the landscape sombered at his obscuration, and he looked, as the foul intrusion overshadowed his disk, like a noble nature seized upon, darkened, marred and smothered to blackness and darkness, by the Genius of slavery. The envious eclipse passes off, and the released luminary shines on gloriously again in mid heaven. Slavery is perpetual eclipse –sickness to “doomsday” –eternal obscuration. May God in his mercy rectify the erring orbs of life, to prevent and remove such fatal moral conjunctions. All animate creation seemed to apprehend and notice instinctively the malady of the heavens. The few birds that remain extant at this unmusical season, gave token of their apprehension of night-fall by betaking themselves to the topmost boughs of the trees — to get as late a good-night as they could, from the blessed luminary whose good morrow they hail with such choral gladness, in that joyous season when “the time of the singing of birds is come.” The cricket and the grasshopper, in the fields by the road side, set up, as night came down, their twilight hum, and blew their “drowsy bugle.” A drove of cattle, through which we passed, on the way to Brighton –like a coffle from the city of WASHINGTON to Alabama– halted, as the drover told us, as if the hour for putting up at night had come. And our own good steed, refreshed by the coolness of the temperature, and warned by the deepening shadows, set up his evening trot, in full remembrance, as well as his master, of Concord hospitality –for he has a “memory like a horse”– and had every visible and ostensible reason to believe, that stable-time and release from the harness were at hand. Would that the poor human cattle of the republic could realize such a season! But neither night nor eclipse brings respite to them. THEY ARE SLAVES. At the height of the obscuration, the sky wore the appearance of real sunset — a sunset far up from the horizon, with blue sky below, between it and the hills. The passing off of the eclipse was invisible, by reason of the thick, hard, night-looking clouds, and the sun did not reappear to give assurance of his recovery. May it not be emblematic of the extinction of slavery in this country amid the gloomy shadowings and night of insurrection, which our friend, the Observer, deprecates with such deep shuddering — while the prospect of eternal slavery he can look on with most serene composure. The “specious twilight” of the eclipse gradually put on evening’s bona fide enshroudings, and settled into ——— but we forget that our eclipse was seen by all our readers, and will leave them, with the wish, that the sun may rise upon them again on the morrow, all unmarred and unscathed by his conflict with the “dirty planet,” and light them all on the way to a day of anti-slavery gratitude and duty. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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(We may trust that in particular this will be true for one new black family in New Bedford.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1839
August 29, Thursday: John Shepard Keyes, who had been a schoolmate of Henry Thoreau at the Concord Academy, commented in his diary on a melon party, the first melons to ripen that year, that was being thrown by Thoreau in anticipation of his and his brother John Thoreau, Jr.’s departure for an adventure from Concord MA to Concord, New Hampshire by boat and on into the White Mountains:
Went up to see Henry Thoreau who is about starting on his expedition to the White Mts[.] in his boat. He has all things arranged prime and will have a glorious time if he is fortunate enough to have good weather. He showed me all the minutiae of packing and invited me up there to eat some fine melons in the evening.... I spent ... the rest of the time getting the fellows ready to go to the Thoreaus[’] melon spree. We went about 9 and saw a table spread in the very handsomest style with all kinds and qualities of melons and we attacked them furiously and I eat [sic] till what with the wine & all I had quite as much as I could carry home.
This is perhaps the Thursday evening party mentioned by Walter Harding as in “a recently discovered letter”:
David had a party of gentlemen, Thursday evening, to eat melons. I went in to see the table, which was adorned with sunflowers, cornstalks, beet leaves & squash blossoms. There were forty-six melons, fifteen different kinds; & apples, all the production of his own garden. This is the only thing of interest that has happened in town this week. When we went in to see the tables, Mrs. Thoreau felt called upon to apologize for Henry having a party, it having been spread abroad by her that such customs met with his contempt & entire disapprobation. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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September 6, Friday: The intrepid Thoreau brothers took the stage from Concord, New Hampshire to Plymouth, New Hampshire, then hiked through Thornton, Peeling, and Lincoln to Franconia below Mount Washington in the Presidential Range (Agiocochuck, elevation 6,288 feet).
The Thoreau brothers presumably both climbed and descended along the 1819 Crawford Path that begins at Crawford Notch and follows along the treeless ridge line, passing Mt. Eisenhower and Mt. Monroe and the Lake of the Clouds at about 5,000 feet to the summit of Mt. Washington. Thoreau’s description of the actual climb, in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, would be succinct: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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A WEEK: Wandering on through notches which the streams had made, by the side and over the brows of hoar hills and mountains, across the stumpy, rocky, forested, and bepastured country, we at length crossed on prostrate trees over the Amonoosuck, and breathed the free air of Unappropriated Land. Thus, in fair days as well as foul, we had traced up the river to which our native stream is a tributary, until from Merrimack it became the Pemigewasset that leaped by our side, and when we had passed its fountain-head, the Wild Amonoosuck, whose puny channel was crossed at a stride, guiding us toward its distant source among the mountains, and at length, without its guidance, we were enabled to reach the summit of AGIOCOCHOOK. “Sweet days, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky, Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night, For thou must die.” — HERBERT
When we returned to Hooksett, a week afterward, the melon man, in whose corn-barn we had hung our tent and buffaloes and other things to dry, was already picking his hops, with many women and children to help him. We bought one watermelon, the largest in his patch, to carry with us for ballast. It was Nathan’s, which he might sell if he wished, having been conveyed to him in the green state, and owned daily by his eyes. After due consultation with “Father,” the bargain was concluded, — we to buy it at a venture on the vine, green or ripe, our risk, and pay “what the gentlemen pleased.” It proved to be ripe; for we had had honest experience in selecting this fruit.
Thoreau’s text does not remain at this elevation. With the words “When we returned to Hookset...” he embarked the brothers upon their literary return voyage downriver. The full poem “Vertue” by Rector George Herbert in his 1633 THE TEMPLE had been as follows: Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridall of the earth and skie: The dew shall weep thy fall to night; For thou must die. Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye: Thy root is ever in its grave And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie; My musick shows ye have your closes, And all must die. Onely a sweet and vertuous soul, Like season’d timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal, HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Then chiefly lives.
THE TEMPLE
We may note that our adventurous author has referred earlier, in the text of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, to the poem “The Elixir” among the literary remainders of Herbert: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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A WEEK: It required some rudeness to disturb with our boat the mirror-like surface of the water, in which every twig and blade of grass was so faithfully reflected; too faithfully indeed for art to imitate, for only Nature may exaggerate herself. The shallowest still water is unfathomable. Wherever the trees and skies are reflected, there is more than Atlantic depth, and no danger of fancy running aground. We notice that it required a separate intention of the eye, a more free and abstracted vision, to see the reflected trees and the sky, than to see the river bottom merely; and so are there manifold visions in the direction of every object, and even the most opaque reflect the heavens from their surface. Some men have their eyes naturally intended to the one and some to the other object. “A man that looks on glass, On it may stay his eye, Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, And the heavens espy.” Two men in a skiff, whom we passed hereabouts, floating buoyantly amid the reflections of the trees, like a feather in mid-air, or a leaf which is wafted gently from its twig to the water without turning over, seemed still in their element, and to have very delicately availed themselves of the natural laws. Their floating there was a beautiful and successful experiment in natural philosophy, and it served to ennoble in our eyes the art of navigation; for as birds fly and fishes swim, so these men sailed. It reminded us how much fairer and nobler all the actions of man might be, and that our life in its whole economy might be as beautiful as the fairest works of art or nature.
Teach me, my God and King, In all things thee to see, And what I do in any thing, To do it as for thee: Not rudely, as a beast, To runne into an action; But still to make thee prepossest, And give it his perfection. A man that looks on glasse, On it may stay his eye; Or if he pleaseth, through it passe, And then the heav’n espie.
All may of thee partake: Nothing can be so mean, Which with his tincture (for thy sake) Will not grow bright and clean. A servant with this clause Makes drudgerie divine: Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Makes that and th’ action fine. This is the famous stone That turneth all to gold: For that which God doth touch and own Cannot for lesse be told. THE TEMPLE
December 21, Saturday: Using a metaphor of a legislature passing a temperance law while by its drunkenness promoting drunkenness, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers published the following paragraph in Concord, New Hampshire’s anti-slavery paper Herald of Freedom:
Some of our temperance friends are in love with legislative reform in this state, in this behalf. We are decidedly opposed to it. It is an illegitimate mode of reform, and is, we believe, resorted to by those clergymen and politicians, and other great men, who are afraid of the effect of moral agitation upon their influential positions in community. We say, let every man sell as much rum and drink as much rum as he chooses, for all legislation. If we can’t stop drunkenness without the paltry aid of our state house, let it go on. It is a less evil than sumptuary legislation, — and a legislative reformation would be good for nothing, if it could be effected. It would be a totally unprincipled reformation. And as much as we loathe drunkenness, we had as lief witness any bar-room scene we ever saw, as some scenes enacted at our stone state house. Why, we have to keep the legislature itself, sober, in the very session time, by influence of the Temperance society. Stop that influence, and the legislative session would be a time of general drunkenness, gambling and debauchery, wherever the legislature should hold its sittings. And is the country to look to legislation for the preservation of its morals! We would as soon look to the general muster, as the general court. We say this with all deference to our public servants, as they call themselves when they want our votes. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1841
The negrero Sophia of New-York shipped 750 slaves destined for Brazil (HOUSE DOCUMENT, 29th Congress, 1st session III, Number 43, pages 3-8).
The negrero Pilgrim of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Solon of Baltimore, William Jones of New-York, and Himmaleh of New-York cleared from Rio Janeiro heading for the coast of Africa (HOUSE DOCUMENT, 29th Congress, 1st session III, Number 43, pages 8-12). INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Charles James Fox, in connection with the Reverend Samuel Osgood, then pastor of the Unitarian Church in Nashua, prepared the THE NEW HAMPSHIRE BOOK OF PROSE AND POETRY (SPECIMENS OF THE LITERATURE OF THE GRANITE STATE), a collection of pieces in prose and verse, from the writings of natives and adopted citizens of that state.
During this year Henry C. Wright took part in an “anti-ministry” convention and determined that Quaker principles seemed to be the most Christian: I would have every man his own minister, and his own church, and his own state, under God.
His treatise MAN-KILLING, BY INDIVIDUALS AND NATIONS, WRONG — DANGEROUS IN ALL CASES was published in Boston by Moses A. Dow and his 8-page DUTY OF ABOLITIONISTS TO PRO-SLAVERY MINISTERS AND CHURCHES was published in Concord, New Hampshire by John R. French. This latter pamphlet marked HDT WHAT? INDEX
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his personal break with compromise on the issue of abolitionism — it is in the form of a letter directed to his congregation in Newbury, Massachusetts in which he says the members are as sinful and guilty as slave owners, and that he hereby excommunicates them all! (The elders of the church of course accepted his resignation. From this point forward it is inappropriate for us to refer to him any longer as “the Reverend.”) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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January 13, Wednesday: It was reported that a branch of the Nonresistance Society was formed for New Hampshire, at Concord, New Hampshire, with the following members: Parker Pillsbury, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Stephen Symonds Foster, and Amos Wood.42
42. There was an Amos Wood in the Concord fight in 1775, and there were Woods present in Concord MA at this time, and there was a Mrs. Amos Wood present in Concord in 1875. Was this the person in New Hampshire perhaps the son of the Amos Wood who was born on 28 Oct 1734 in Mendon to James Wood and Grace Thayer Wood? Or maybe the Amos Wood who was born in Canada in 1820, either in Ontario or Quebec and died in Chicago in 1913? HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1842
During this year and the following one, Cyrus Barton would be a member of New Hampshire’s Governor’s Council. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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The Boston rail lines reached Concord, New Hampshire. Beginning of purchase of land for the Boston/ Fitchburg railroad right-of-way. This railroad would be described as follows:
The FITCHBURG RAILROAD, after leaving the depot in Causeway Street, passes through Somerville, South Acton, Porter’s, West Acton, Wellington Hill, Littleton, Waverley, Groton Junction Waltham, Shirley, Stony Brook, Lunenburg, Weston, Leominster, Lincoln, Fitchburg. Concord,
The Fitchburg RR was chartered to establish “the direct route, when finished, for the travel from our Atlantic steamers to Montreal,” a line which was to be financed entirely through the sale of stock, mostly to the people who lived in the towns that would be along the line. So what was so important about Fitchburg, that Boston had to run a RR in that direction? Across the Central Massachusetts Uplands from Fitchburg, beyond Mount Wachusett, lay Greenfield on the Connecticut River, and beyond that, if a Hoosac tunnel could ever be drilled through the Berkshire Hills, would lie Troy, Albany, and Schenectady, in the Hudson River Valley. This was potentially the shortest and the lowest route of all across the Appalachian Chain into the interior of the continent.
Elisha W. Bouvé proposed that there be a grand railroad terminal in Boston for this grand new Fitchburg-and- HDT WHAT? INDEX
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ultimately-Beyond railroad. His proposed facade he sketched in the upper right hand corner of this map:
Charles James Fox’s and the Reverend Samuel Osgood’s edition THE NEW HAMPSHIRE BOOK. BEING SPECIMENS OF THE LITERATURE OF THE GRANITE STATE (Nashua, New Hampshire: H.D. Marshall; Nashville, New Hampshire: Charles T. Gill, 1844). STORIES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
On the title page of this collection you will note an extract from a poem. The poem is Mrs. Felicia Hemans’s “Hymn of the Vaudois Mountaineers in Times of Persecution,” about the Waldensians: For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers’ God! Thou hast made thy children mighty, By the touch of the mountain sod. Thou hast fix’d our ark of refuge, Where the spoiler’s foot ne’er trod; For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers’ God! We are watchers of a beacon Whose light must never die; We are guardians of an altar Midst the silence of the sky; The rocks yield founts of courage, Struck forth as by thy rod; For the strength of the hills we bless thee, HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Our God, our fathers’ God! For the dark resounding caverns, Where thy still, small voice is heard; For the strong pines of the forest, That by thy breath are stirr’d; For the storms on whose free pinions Thy spirit walks abroad; For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers’ God! The royal eagle darteth On his quarry from the heights, And the stag that knows no master, Seeks there his wild delights; But we, for thy communion, Have sought the mountain sod, For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers’ God! The banner of the chieftain, Far, far below us waves; The war-horse of the spearman Cannot reach our lofty caves: Thy dark clouds wrap the threshold Of freedom’s last abode; For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers’ God! For the shadow of thy presence, Round our camp of rock outspread; For the stern defiles of battle, Bearing record of our dead; For the snows and for the torrents, For the free heart’s burial sod; For the strength of the hills we bless thee. Our God, our fathers’ God! HDT WHAT? INDEX
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February 15, Tuesday: The Reverend William Adam was elected Treasurer of the Association of Industry and Education, and Joseph Conant was elected its President. During this month the Reverend Adam was helping issue a “Preliminary Circular” describing the plan for the Association, which evidently caused Lucy Maria Kollock Brastow Mack and David Mack to change their minds about papers they had just signed with Brook Farm, and come to Northampton to reside instead. The focus of the Northampton association was going to be upon an early version of the Socialist dream of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” in that each participant would contribute according to his or her ability, without recourse to any patriarchal hierarchy or racial division of labor, and would receive according to his or her individual need, in a spirit which was referred to as “equal brotherhood.” (Although the ideology of this association has been portrayed by some as Fourierist, by others as “middle class,” by others as “Transcendentalist,” and by others as “extreme perfectionist” and as “nonresistant,” their contemporary, the newspaper editor of Concord, New Hampshire, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, would categorize them merely as “a peculiar body, and of peculiar individual character.” The Northampton Association of Education and Industry was so advanced in its racial thinking that it even accepted as a member the white widow of a black man.43) COMMUNITARIANISM
Cass advised Webster that, since the Quintuple Treaty obligated its signers to board and search commercial vessels on the high seas in a manner objectionable to the USA, altering the hitherto recognized law of nations, he had on his own responsibility sent a warning to M. Guizot, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, that this was something that we might be prepared to go to war over: “SIR: The recent signature of a treaty, having for its object the suppression of the African slave trade, by five of the powers of Europe, and to which France is a party, is a fact of such general notoriety that it may be assumed as the basis of any diplomatic representations which the subject may fairly require.” The United States is no party to this treaty. She denies the Right of Visitation which England asserts. [quotation from the presidential message of December 7, 1841] This principle is asserted by the treaty. “... The moral effect which such a union of five great powers, two of which are eminently maritime, but three of which have perhaps never had a vessel engaged in that traffic, is calculated to produce upon the United States, and upon other nations who, like them, may be indisposed to these combined movements, though it may be regretted, yet furnishes no just cause of complaint. But the subject assumes another aspect when they are told by one of the parties that their vessels are to be forcibly entered and examined, in order to carry into effect these stipulations. Certainly the American Government does not believe that the high powers, contracting parties to this treaty, have any wish to compel the United States, by force, to adopt their measures to its provisions, or to adopt its stipulations ...; and they will see with pleasure the prompt 43. Otohiko Okugawa’s “Annotated List of Communal and Utopian Societies, 1789-1919,” published as part of the DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN COMMUNAL AND UTOPIAN HISTORY (editor Robert S. Fogarty, Westport CT, 1980, pages 173-233), listed some 119 communal societies established in the USA between 1800 and 1859, not counting those that existed only in “plan and prospectus.” This list of 119 is known, however, to be incomplete; see Dare, Philip N., AMERICAN COMMUNES TO 1860, for a more recent take. Evidence of previously unknown communities continues to turn up from time to time. This decade of the 1840s would turn out to be the key decade for the trend, with at least 59 new communities being formed, most of which would last no longer than two years. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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disavowal made by yourself, sir, in the name of your country, ... of any intentions of this nature. But were it otherwise, ... They would prepare themselves with apprehension, indeed, but without dismay —with regret, but with firmness— for one of those desperate struggles which have sometimes occurred in the history of the world.” If, as England says, these treaties cannot be executed without visiting United States ships, then France must pursue the same course. It is hoped, therefore, that his Majesty will, before signing this treaty, carefully examine the pretensions of England and their compatibility with the law of nations and the honor of the United States. SENATE DOCUMENT, 27th Congress, 3d session, II. No. 52, and IV. No. 223; 29th Congress, 1st session, VIII. No. 377, pages 192-5. INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1843
The church of Benjamin Dudley Emerson in Hampstead, New Hampshire dismissed him to Boston, where he would serve as the Principal of the Adams Grammar School. He and his brother Frederick Emerson would be authors of many well known money making school texts — THE FIRST-CLASS READER was among the most popular of these.
Charles James Fox’s A GUIDE TO OFFICERS OF TOWNS CONTAINING THE STATUTES RELATING TO THEIR OFFICIAL DUTIES, WITH FORMS, DIRECTIONS AND LEGAL DECISIONS, ADAPTED TO THE REVISED STATUTES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE (Concord, New Hampshire: G.P. Lyon). Samuel D. Bell and Charles James Fox’s THE REVISED STATUTES OF THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, PASSED DECEMBER 23, 1842 (Concord, New Hampshire: Carroll & Baker, state printer).
Spring: Despite declining pulmonary health, Charles James Fox managed to complete his work on the REVISED STATUTES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
June 7, Wednesday-9, Friday: Frederick Douglass was in Concord, New Hampshire for the annual meeting of the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1844
Salma Hale was again a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives.
February 11, Sunday-18, Sunday: Frederick Douglass was lecturing in Concord , New Hampshire.
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March 15, Friday: Documentation of the international slave trade, per W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: “Report: “The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the petition of ... John Hanes, ... praying an adjustment of his accounts for the maintenance of certain captured African slaves, ask leave to report,” etc.” –SENATE DOCUMENT, 28 Cong. 1 sess. IV. No. 194.
In regard to the bursting of the experimental cannon aboard the steam warship USS Princeton, above under the date of February 28, and in regard to the national pomp and ceremony of the funeral arrangements which followed, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers published the article on the following page in Concord, New Hampshire’s anti-slavery paper Herald of Freedom.
Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson in regard to the Reverend William Henry Channing:
There is some talk of Channing’s giving up his efforts here and going on to Brook Farm this spring. Last sunday morning the text of his sermon was first seek the Kingdom of Heaven and then all things will be added there with. His sermon was first seek all outward things and the Kingdom of Heaven will come. Fourierism.
Spring: Charles James Fox returned from his Mediterranean cruise by way of Italy, Switzerland, France, and England. His pulmonary health was unimproved.
Fall: Charles James Fox embarked on a voyage in the West Indies, for his health, accompanied by his spouse Catherine P. Abbot Fox. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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BURSTING OF THE PAIXHAN GUN. The reader has heard, by this time, of the terrible catastrophe on board the nation’s War-Steamer, Princeton — where five of our governmental chieftains were stricken down at once by the exploded fragments of a great death-engine — intended by them for the destruction of others. They were practising with it, and amusing themselves with exhibitions of its hideous power. Five chieftains, and a slave killed, John Tyler’s slave. The bursting of the Paixhan gun has emancipated him — and left his owner behind. How busy death has been on every side of that owner, since he was thrown up into power by the fermentation of 1840! Above him and below him, in place, “the insatiate archer,” (as poetry has called a dull genius, that never shot an arrow in his life,) has brought down the tall men, and left him standing, like an ungleaned stalk, in a harvested corn-field. He seems to have been the subject of a passover. I saw account of the burial of those slaughtered politicians. The hearses passed along, of Upshur, Gilmer, Kennon, Maxcy, and Gardner, —but the dead slave, who fell in company with them —on the deck of the Princeton, was not there. He was held their equal by the impartial gun- burst, but not allowed by the bereaved nation, a share in the funeral. The five chiefs were borne pompously to the grave, under palls attended by rival expectants of the places they filled before they fell, (not those they now fill) but the poor slave was left by the nation to find his way thither as he might, —or to tarry above ground. Out upon their funeral — and upon the paltry procession that went in its train. Why didn’t they inquire for the body of the other man who fell on that deck! And why hasn’t the nation inquired — and its press? I saw account of the scene, in a barbarian print called the Boston Atlas — and it was dumb on the absence of that body — as if no such man had fallen. Why, I demand in the name of human nature, was that sixth man of the game brought down by that great shot — left unburied and above ground? — for there is no account yet, that his body has been allowed the rites of sepulture. What ailed him, that he was not buried? Wasn’t he dead? Wasn’t he killed as dead as Upshur and Gilmer? And didn’t the same explosion kill him? And won’t his corse decay, like theirs? Don’t it want burying as much? Did they throw it overboard from the deck of the steamer, —to feed the fishes? What have they done with it! Six men were slain by the bursting of that gun — and but five were borne along in that funeral train. Where have they left the sixth? Could they remember their miserable color-phobia, at an hour like this? Did the corses of those mangled and slaughtered secretaries revolt at the companionship of their fellow-slain, and demur at being seen going with him to the grave? If not, what ailed the black man, I ask again, who died on the deck of the steamer with Abel Upshur and Thomas Gilmer, that he couldn’t be buried? Are they cannibals, at that government seat, and have they otherwise disposed of that corse? For what would not they do to a lifeless body — who would enslave it, when alive? I will not entertain the hideous conjecture — though they did enslave him in his life-time. But they didn’t bury him, even as a slave. They didn’t assign him a jim-crow place in that solemn procession, that he might follow, to wait upon his enslavers in the land of spirits. They have gone there without slaves, or waiters. Possibly John Tyler may have had a hole dug somewhere in the ground, to tumble in his emancipated slave. Possibly not. Nobody knows, probably — nobody cares. They mentioned his death among the statistics of that deck, and that is the last we hear of the slave. His tyrants and enslavers are borne to their long home, with pomp and circumstance, and their mangled clay honored and lamented by a pious people. The poor black man — they enslaved and imbruted him all his life-time, and now he is dead, they have, for aught appears, left him to decay and waste above ground. Let the civilized world take note of the circumstance. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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After August 1st: Anna Maria Whiting44 wrote up the events of Concord’s annual fair of the Anti-Slavery Society of Middlesex County celebrating the 1st of August liberation of the slaves of the British West Indies and sent them off to Nathaniel Peabody Rogers of the Concord, New Hampshire Herald of Freedom. Unfortunately, although it was possible in that day and age to describe how church officials might be timid enough to refuse the use of church facilities for such moralizing purposes, and town officials might be wrongheaded enough to denounce such activities as antislavery oratory as “irresponsible” and refuse to ring the town bell to summon townspeople to the lectures associated with the booths that had been strung by the antislavery ladies along the corridors of the Middlesex County courthouse in Concord, it was not possible in that day and age to describe how a town squire such as Emerson might be for anti-slavery for all the wrong, racist reasons — for Emerson was against the enslavement of blacks in America because he was against the whole idea of allowing people who were obviously inferior as human beings, to be present at all in this New World, the land of the free and the home of the brave, which we should have the intelligence to restrict to those able to benefit from it, that is, to those of us who are brave enough to preserve our freedoms. It is only recently that it has become possible to reconstruct the activities of Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Moses Grandy, and Henry Thoreau in Concord on this day in terms of their respective attitudes toward racism and antiracism on that day on which two black speakers came to town, rather than in the more traditional terms of their respective attitudes toward proslavery versus antislavery. In passing I must recount to you an amusing circumstance. There was an unusual difficulty about ringing the bell of the Unitarian Meeting-house, and those who never hesitated before, now shrunk back, and did not dare attempt it. Five or six individuals who were asked declined for one or another reason. Your friend, David Henry Thoreau, (no foreigner, but one whom Concord should be proud to number among her sons,) seeing the timidity of one unfortunate youth, who dared not touch the bell rope, took hold of it with a strong arm; and the bell (though set in its own way), pealed forth its summons right merrily.— This reluctance among those timid gentlemen to ring the bell seems to me very amusing. One of them went to ask leave to ring it of one of the committee who take charge of the meeting-house, but not finding him at home, declined taking action on the subject.
After August 1: I was once travelling through a distant and mountainous part of the country, along the banks of a stream whose course I followed for several days, through a succession of shady vallies, sunken deep among the hills –where dwelt a few mild and hospitable inhabitants –while on either hand –high up on the level tops of the mountains dwelt a different & less cultivated race who had but little intercourse with themselves – so near indeed though inaccessible that I occasionally heard the bleating of their flocks– As the day was not yet spent and I was anxious to improve the light though my path was gradually rising to these higher levels I took leave of my kind hosts –who directed me to the dwelling of the nearest of the race – whom we will call Satyrus, who they said was a rude and inhospitable man. At length as the sun was setting behind the mountains in a still darker and more solitary vale, where the shaggy woods almost joined their tops over the torrent I reached the dwelling of my host. I observed as I drew near to his abode that he was less savage than I had feared, for he kept herds and dogs to watch them, and I saw where he made maple sugar on the sides of the mountains, and detected the voices of children mingling with the murmur of the torrent before the door. As I passed his stable I met one whom I took to be a hired man attending to his cattle, and inquired if they 44.According to “Marie Birdsall”
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entertained travellers at that house. “Some times we do” –he answered gruffly, and immediately went to the farthest stall from me– And I perceived that it was Rice himself whom I had addressed. But pardoning this incivility to the wildness of the surrounding scenery –I bent my steps to the house– There was no sign post Before it nor invitation to the traveller though I saw by the road that many went and came there –but the owner’s name only was fastened to the outside –a sort of implied and sullen invitation, as I thought. I passed from room to room without meeting any one, at first, till I came to what seemed the guests apartment, which was neat and even had an air of refinement, and I was glad to find a chart on the wall which would direct me upon my journey on the morrow. At length I heard a step in a distant apartment which was the first I had entered, and went to see if the master of the house had come in, but it proved to be only a child, one of those whose voices I had heard, probably his son, and between him and me stood in the door way a large watch dog, which growled upon me and looked as if he would presently spring, but he boy did not speak to him nor seem to observe the danger. And when I asked him for a glass of water he briefly said “It runs in the corner.” So I took a mug and went outdoors again and searched round the corners of the house, but could find no well nor spring, nor any water, but the stream I have mentioned –which ran all along the front I came back therefore and set down the empty mug –thinking to ask if the stream was good to drink –saying I could not find it –whereupon the child seized the mug and going to the corner of the room where a cool spring trickled through a pipe into the apartment, filled it and drank, and gave it to me empty again –then calling to the dog rushed out of the room, and left me alone. This spring was cool and pure and seemed to issue from the mountain behind the house, and was conducted through it in pipes, and thence flowed into the stream in front. At length some of the men came in and drank and washed and combed their hair. And some of them sat down, as if wear; and fell asleep, without having spoken. All the while I saw no females, but sometimes heard a bustle in that part of the house, from which the spring came and whither the child had gone. At length Rice himself came in with an ox whip in his hand, breathing hard, and going to a corner drank some kind of liquor. He sat down not far from me and when I asked if he could give me a bed, he said there wa sons ready, but in such a a tone as if I ought to have known it, and the less said about that the better. I observed that it was a wild and rugged country which he inhabited and worth coming many miles to visit — “not so very rough neither,” said he, and appealed to his men to bear witness to the breadth and level of his fields, and the size of his crops, “And if we have some hills”, said he, “there’s no better pasturage any where.” I then asked if this place was not the one I heard of, calling it by the name I had seen on the map –or if it was a certain other, and he answered gruffly –that it was neither the one nor the other –that he had settled it –and cultivated it –and made it what it was –and I could know nothing about it –that it was a place between certain other places –and the books and maps were all wrong –for he had lived there longer than anybody. To tell the truth I was very much pleased with my host’s residence, and inclined even to exaggerate the grandeur of the scenery –and sought in many ways to make known my contentment. Observing some guns and other implements of hunting one the wall, and his hounds now sleeping on the floor, I took occasion to change the discourse, and inquired if there was much game in that country –and he answered this question more graciously for he was evidently fond of the chace –but when I asked if there were many bears, he answered impatiently that he did not loose more sheep than his neighbors –he had tamed and civilized that region. After a pause, thinking of my journey on the morrow, and of the few hours of day-light in that hollow and mountainous country, which would require me to be on my way betimes, I remarked that the daylight must be shorter by an hour there than in the neighboring plains, at which he gruffly asked what I knew about it. And affirmed that he had as much light as his neighbors –he ventured to say the days were longer there than where I lived as I should find if I stayed –that some how or rather as I could’nt be expected to understand the sun came over the mountains a half an hour earlier and lingered a half an hour later, than elsewhere. Without regarding his rudeness I said with a little less familiarity that he was a fortunate man, and I trusted he was grateful for so much light –and rising said I would take a light, and I would pay him then for my lodging, for I expected to commence my journey on the morrow, even as early as the sun rose in his country, but he answered somewhat more civilly as I though that I should not fail to find some of his household stirring however early, for they were no sluggards, and I could take my breakfast with them before I started if I chose, as as He lighted the lamp I could see a gleam of true hospitality and ancient civility –a beam of pure and even gentle humanity, from his bleared and moist eyes, for the effect of the liquor had in some measure worked off– And he led the way to my apartment stepping over the limbs of his men who were sound asleep on the floor, and showed me a clean and comfortable bed. But I arose by star light the next morning and usual, before my host HDT WHAT? 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or his men or even his dogs were awake, and having left an ninepence on the counter, was already half way over the mountain with the sun, before they had broken their fast. But before I had quite left the country of my host, while the first rays of the sun slanted over the mountains, as I had stopped by the wayside to gather some wild berries, a very aged man came along with a milking pail in his hand, and turning aside also began to pluck the berries with me, but when I inquired the way he answered in a low rough voice without looking up, or seeming to take any notice of me –which I imputed to his years – and presently mutturing to himself he proceed to collect his cows in a neighboring pasture, and when he had again returned to the wayside, he suddenly stopped while his cows went on before, and uncovering his head prayed aloud to God for his daily bread, and also that he who letteth his rain fall on the just and on the unjust, and without whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground –would not neglect the stranger –meaning me– And when he had done praying I made bold to ask him –if he had any cheese in his hut which he would sell me, but he answered without looking up and as gruffly as before –that they did’nt make any –and went to milking. “The stranger who turneth away from a house with disappointed hopes, leaveth there his own offences, and departeth, taking with him all the good actions of the owner.”
According to our faithful town history — “One branch of it rises in the south part of Hopkinton; and another from a pond and a large cedar-swamp in Westborough, and running into Hopkinton, forms the boundary line between that town and Southborough. Thence in a northerly direction it passes through Framingham, and forms the boundary line between Sudbury and East sudbury (where it is sometimes called Sudbury River), and enters Concord at the south part of the town. After passing through it in a diagonal direction, it receives the North River, and, going out at the north east part between Bedford and Carlisle and through Billerica, empties into the Merrimack at Lowell. It is remarkable for the gentleness of its current, which is scarcely perceptible by the eye. At low water mark? it is from 4 to 15 feet deep, and from 100 to 300 feet wide. Where it enters Concord it is 200 feet, and where it leaves it 330. At the former place it is 114 feet above low-water mark in Boston. In times when the river is highest, it overflows its banks, and is in many places more than a mile wide.” LEMUEL SHATTUCK
It was at this point that Thoreau was re-drafting some scraps from his earlier essay on “Sound and Silence” onto three sheets in his Long Book (2, 112-5) [compare this with A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, pages 391-3; it was these three sheets that Linck Johnson used in his reconstruction of the 1845 conclusion of the 1st draft (390-3)]:
As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude — so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. We go about to find Solitude and Silence, as though they dwelt only in distant glens and the depths of the wood [later Thoreau changed “wood” back to “forest”], venturing out from these fortresses at midnight — and do not dream that she is then imported into them when we wend thither– As the butcher busied himself with looking after his knife when he had it in his mouth. For where man is there is silence, And it takes a man to make a place silent. It [later Thoreau changed “It” back to “Silence”] is the communing of a conscious soul with itself– When we attend for a moment to our own infinity –audible to all men –at all times –in all places –It is when we hear inwardly –sound when he [illegible: “we”?] hear outwardly.
[after August 1: Silence is ever less strange and startling than noise.] Creation has not displaced her but is her visible frame work and foil– She is always at hand with her wisdom, by road sides and street corners — lurking in belfries, the cannon’s mouth, and the wake of the earthquake, gathering up and fondling their puny din in her ample bosom. Silence is ever less strange and startling than noise. and is any where intense and profound just in proportion as we find ourselves these. [Thoreau moved first sentence to end of paragraph and added “and is any where intense and profound just in proportion as we find ourselves these.”] All sounds are her servants and purveyers, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after. The thunder is only the signal of her coming. [Thoreau interlined “to attend to her communications” but we don’t know where he intended to position this phrase.] All sound is nearly akin to silence — it is a bubble on her surface which straightway bursts, an evidence of the strength and prolificness of the under current. It is a faint utterance of silence — and then only agreeable to our HDT WHAT? INDEX
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auditory senses [JOURNAL: nerves] when it contrasts itself with and relieves the former. In proportion as it does this, and is a heightener and intensifier of the Silence — it is harmony and purest melody. Accordingly every melodious sound is an ally of silence — a help and not a hindrance to abstraction. Silence is the universal refuge. The sequel to all dull discourses, and all foolish acts –as balm to our every chagrin –as welcome after satiety as disappointment. That background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure he [illegible: “we”?] may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum. Where no indignity can assail no personality — disturb us. The orator puts off his individuality and is then most eloquent, when most silent. He listens while he speaks and is a hearer along with his audience. Who has not hearkened to her infinite din? She is Truth’s speaking trumpet– She is the sole oracle, the true Delphi and Dodena, which kings and courtiers would do well to consult, nor will they be balked by an ambiguous answer. through her all revelations have been made– Just in proportion as men have consulted her oracle they have obtained a clear insight, and their age been marked as an enlightened one. But as often as they have gone gadding abroad to a strange Delphi and her mad priestess, their age has been Dark or Leaden. These have been garralous [garrulous] and noisy eras which no longer yield any sound, but the Grecian or silent & melodious era, is ever sounding and resounding in the ears of men. A good book is the plectrum with which our silent lyres are struck. We not unfrequently refer the interest which belongs to our own unwritten sequel to the written and comparatively lifeless body of the work. Of all books this sequel is the most indispensable part. It should be the authors aim to say once and emphatically “he said” ‘’ This is the most the book maker can attain to If he make his volume a foil whereon the waves of silence may break it is well. It were vain for me to interpret the silence — she cannot be done into English. For six thousand years have men translated her with what fidelity belonged to each, and still is she little better than a sealed book. A man may run on confidently for a time –thinking he has her under his thumb, and shall one day exhaust her– but he too must at last be silent, and men remark only how brave a beginning he made. For when he at length dives into her — so vast is the disproportion of the told to the untold, that the former will seem but the bubble on the surface where he disappeared. Never the less will we go on, like those Chinese Cliff swallows, feathering our nests with the froth, which may one day be bread of life to such as dwell by the sea shore. [Two irrelevant paragraphs on Marlowe in the JOURNAL and one on how water-lily blossoms open simultaneously in the morning sunlight are omitted in this version being prepared for publication.] And now our boat was already grating against the bullrushes of its native port — and its keel again recognized the Concord mud where the flattened weeds still preserved some semblance of its own outline having scarce yet recovered themselves since its departure. And we leaped gladly on shore –drawing it up and fastening it to the little apple tree whose stem still bore the mark which its chain had worn –in the chafing of the spring freshets.45
As the poet [Charles Cotton, in “The Tempest”] says Standing upon the margent of the main, Whilst the high boiling tide came tumbling in, &c ** Soon could my sad imagination find A parallel to this half world of flood. An ocean by my walls of earth confined, And rivers in the channels of my blood; Discovering man, unhappy man, to be
45.The poet W.H. Auden has in 1962 brought forward a snippet from this day’s entry as:
THE VIKING BOOK OF APHORISMS, A PERSONAL SELECTION BY W.H. AUDEN...
Pg Topic Aphorism Selected by Auden out of Thoreau
278 Writers and Readers It is the author’s aim to say once and emphatically, “He said.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Of this great frame Heaven’s epitome.— CHARLES COTTON
September 27, Friday: Nathaniel Peabody Rogers of the Concord NH, New Hampshire Herald of Freedom published Anna Maria Whiting’s account of the antislavery fair held in Concord, Massachusetts on August 1, participated in by Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, and Henry Thoreau.46
The Reverend Joel Hawes was in this year visiting Europe and points east, spending several months in Asia Minor and Turkey, where his only daughter Mrs. Mary E. Van Lennep, wife of the Reverend Henry J. Van Lennep, was a missionary. MRS. MARY E. VAN LENNEP
On May 11th this father had parted from his daughter at Smyrna and headed back toward America. She was then in excellent health. On this day, however, in Constantinople, after having for a few days suffered from an illness that had seemed mild, she died.
46. Wendell Glick. “Thoreau and the ‘Herald of Freedom’,” New England Quarterly XXII (1949). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1845
Cyrus Barton was a member of the New Hampshire Constitutional Convention, president of the City Council of Concord NH, and US Marshall for that city.
Lucy Crawford’s HISTORY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS FROM THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF UPPER COOS AND PEQUAWKET.
Salma Hale was again a member of the New Hampshire Senate.
Horace Fabyan, the speculator who had taken over the Crawford House in Crawford Notch in the White Mountains in 1837, in this year also took over the Willey House there. He would build up the Willey House, a “commodious two-story” structure, under his administration to the point at which it would be able to accommodate more than fifty tourists at a time.
May 3, Saturday: Fire broke out in a theater in Canton, China and 1,670 were consumed. TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS
WALDEN: If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, –we never need read of another. One is enough.
“The only lesson of history is that there are no lessons of history.” — A.J.P. Taylor
The cadaver of Nicolò Paganini was placed in unconsecrated ground at Villa Gaione, Parma.
Death of Thomas Hood after long illness at age 46.
A couple of weeks earlier President Tyler had vetoed a bill that would have prevented him from allocating federal funds to construct revenue cutters without prior approval from Congress. This was the 10th occasion on which President Tyler had exercised his veto power under the Constitution, making him and President Jackson by a considerable extent the most frequent users of this power. On this day the federal Congress for the 1st time by the necessary 2/3ds vote exercised its override power under the Constitution.
Waldo Emerson climbed 3,000-foot Mount Monadnock, near Peterborough in New Hampshire, during the night, and remained on the summit composing poetry from dawn until 10AM. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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May 31, Saturday-June 4 (approximately): Frederick Douglass lectured in Concord for the annual meeting of the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society.
June: Charles James Fox and Catherine P. Abbot Fox returned to Nashua, New Hampshire from their voyage to the West Indies. Charles, although he had become very ill, provided a series of letters to the Nashua gazette and Hillsborough advertiser relating their experiences on this voyage. THE NASHUA GAZETTE
The “traitor” of Rhode Island, Thomas Wilson Dorr, was released from prison. “Go thou and govern no more.”
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1846
Salma Hale was again a member of the New Hampshire Senate. In a new edition of his textbook, THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM THEIR FIRST SETTLEMENT AS COLONIES TO THE CLOSE OF THE WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN IN 1815, his name was provided as the author.
The Reverend Charles Henry Appleton Dall made a 3d stab at being an urban minister-at-large, this time in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (his funding would dry up before the year was out, and he would accept appointment as the minister of a church in Needham, Massachusetts).
February 17, day: Henry Thoreau was written to by Charles Lane in New-York. New York February 17/46 Dear Friend [ ] The books you were so kind as to deposite about two years and a half ago with Messrs Wiley and Putnam have all been sold[,] but as they were left in your name it is needful in strict business that you should send an order to them to pay to me the amount due. I will therefore thank you to enclose me such an order at HDT WHAT? INDEX
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your earliest convenience in a letter addressed to your admiring friend [ ] Charles Lane Post Office New York City.
Page 2 Address: Henry D. Thoreau Sylvan favored by A.B.A.
After a protracted illness, Charles James Fox died in Nashua, New Hampshire. The scholar’s brilliant light is dim And on his brow death’s signet set; Oh, many an eye that welcomed him With sorrow’s burning tears is wet. His was a noble heart and true, His was a strong and gifted mind; And fame and love around him threw Their wreaths with choicest flowers entwined. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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— John H. Warland
His last days had been devoted to revision of his HISTORY OF THE OLD TOWNSHIP OF DUNSTABLE: INCLUDING NASHUA, NASHVILLE, HOLLIS, HUDSON, LITCHFIELD, AND MERRIMAC, N.H.; DUNSTABLE AND TYNGSBOROUGH, MASS., and to poetical compositions, chiefly on religious subjects (in the same year the work of history, although not quite complete past the year 1840, would be printed by Charles T. Gill, Publisher of Nashua (Nashville). HISTORY OF DUNSTABLE HDT WHAT? INDEX
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A copy of this book would be in the personal library of Henry Thoreau.
The map of that portion of the watershed of the Merrimack River on page 12 of that volume, reproduced on a following screen, shows that the old township of Dunstable had encompassed all of Brookline and Milford; parts of Mason, Wilton, Lyndeborough, Mount Vernon, Amherst, Londonderry, Windham and Pelham, New Hampshire; and parts of Townsend, Shirley, Groton, Westford, Chelmsford, Lowell and Dracut, Massachusetts. Nottingham had been carved out from the easterly side of the Merrimack River and granted by the Bay Colony to the inhabitants of Dunstable residing in that part of town in 1732, but then when the line was settled in 1741 this area fell into New Hampshire. This portion of New Hampshire was designated to be “Nottingham-West” in 1746 (“West” needed to be added due to the existing town of Nottingham in the eastern area of the state). This Nottingham-West became, in 1830, Hudson, New Hampshire.)
A WEEK: It is stated in the History of Dunstable, that just before PEOPLE OF his last march, Lovewell was warned to beware of the ambuscades A WEEK of the enemy, but “he replied, ‘that he did not care for them,’ and bending down a small elm beside which he was standing into a bow, declared ‘that he would treat the Indians in the same way.’ This elm is still standing [in Nashua], a venerable and magnificent tree.”
METACOM CAPTAIN JOHN LOVEWELL HDT WHAT? INDEX
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A WEEK: In the words of the old nursery tale, sung about a hundred PEOPLE OF years ago, — A WEEK “He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods full wide, And hardships they endured to quell the Indian’s pride.” In the shaggy pine forest of Pequawket they met the “rebel Indians,” and prevailed, after a bloody fight, and a remnant returned home to enjoy the fame of their victory. A township called Lovewell’s Town, but now, for some reason, or perhaps without reason, Pembroke, was granted them by the State. “Of all our valiant English, there were but thirty-four, And of the rebel Indians, there were about four-score; And sixteen of our English did safely home return, The rest were killed and wounded, for which we all must mourn. “Our worthy Capt. Lovewell among them there did die, They killed Lieut. Robbins, and wounded good young Frye, Who was our English Chaplin; he many Indians slew, And some of them he scalped while bullets round him flew.” Our brave forefathers have exterminated all the Indians, and their degenerate children no longer dwell in garrisoned houses nor hear any war-whoop in their path. It would be well, perchance, if many an “English Chaplin” in these days could exhibit as unquestionable trophies of his valor as did “good young Frye.” We have need to be as sturdy pioneers still as Miles Standish, or Church, or Lovewell. We are to follow on another trail, it is true, but one as convenient for ambushes. What if the Indians are exterminated, are not savages as grim prowling about the clearings to-day? — “And braving many dangers and hardships in the way, They safe arrived at Dunstable the thirteenth (?) day of May.” But they did not all “safe arrive in Dunstable the thirteenth,” or the fifteenth, or the thirtieth “day of May.”
METACOM MYLES STANDISH BENJAMIN CHURCH CAPTAIN JOHN LOVEWELL
Of worthy Captain LOVEWELL, I purpose now to sing, How valiantly he served his country and his King; He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods full wide, And hardships they endured to quell the Indian’s pride. ’Twas nigh unto Pigwacket, on the eighth day of May, They spied a rebel Indian soon after break of day; He on a bank was walking, upon a neck of land, Which leads into a pond as we’re made to understand. Our men resolved to have him, and travelled two miles round, HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Until they met the Indian, who boldly stood his ground; Then up speaks Captain LOVEWELL, “Take you good heed,” says he, “This rogue is to decoy us, I very plainly see. “The Indians lie in ambush, in some place nigh at hand, In order to surround us upon this neck of land; Therefore we’ll march in order, and each man leave his pack; That we may briskly fight them when they make their attack.” They came unto this Indian, who did them thus defy, As soon as they came nigh him, two guns he did let fly, Which wounded Captain LOVEWELL, and likewise one man more, But when this rogue was running, they laid him in his gore. Then having scalped the Indian, they went back to the spot, Where they had laid their packs down, but there they found them not, For the Indians having spied them, when they them down did lay, Did seize them for their plunder, and carry them away. These rebels lay in ambush, this very place hard by, So that an English soldier did one of them espy, And cried out, “Here’s an Indian”; with that they started out, As fiercely as old lions, and hideously did shout. With that our valiant English all gave a loud huzza, To show the rebel Indians they feared them not a straw: So now the fight began, and as fiercely as could be, The Indians ran up to them, but soon were forced to flee. Then spake up Captain LOVEWELL, when first the fight began, “Fight on my valiant heroes! you see they fall like rain.” For as we are informed, the Indians were so thick, A man could scarcely fire a gun and not some of them hit. Then did the rebels try their best our soldiers to surround, But they could not accomplish it, because there was a pond, To which our men retreated and covered all the rear, The rogues were forced to flee them, although they skulked for fear. Two logs there were behind them that close together lay, Without being discovered, they could not get away; Therefore our valiant English they travelled in a row, And at a handsome distance as they were wont to go. ’Twas ten o’clock in the morning when first the fight begun, And fiercely did continue until the setting sun; Excepting that the Indians some hours before ’twas night, Drew off into the bushes and ceased a while to fight. But soon again returned, in fierce and furious mood, Shouting as in the morning, but yet not half so loud; For as we are informed, so thick and fast they fell, Scarce twenty of their number at night did get home well. And that our valiant English till midnight there did stay, To see whether the rebels would have another fray; But they no more returning, they made off towards their home, And brought away their wounded as far as they could come. Of all our valiant English there were but thirty-four, And of the rebel Indians there were about fourscore. And sixteen of our English did safely home return, The rest were killed and wounded, for which we all must mourn. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Our worthy Captain LOVEWELL among them there did die, They killed Lieut. ROBBINS, and wounded good young FRYE, Who was our English Chaplain; he many Indians slew, And some of them he scalped when bullets round him flew. Young FULLAM too I’ll mention, because he fought so well, Endeavoring to save a man, a sacrifice he fell: But yet our valiant Englishmen in fight were ne’er dismayed, But still they kept their motion, and WYMAN’S Captain made, Who shot the old chief PAUGUS, which did the foe defeat, Then set his men in order, and brought off the retreat; And braving many dangers and hardships in the way, They safe arrived at Dunstable, the thirteenth day of May. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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July 23, Thursday or 24, Friday: Henry Thoreau provoked Sheriff Sam Staples, who was under contract as the
Concord tax farmer, into taking him illegally to the Middlesex County Prison47and spent the night there, for having for several years (up to perhaps 9), following the example of Bronson Alcott, refused to pay certain taxes as useful for the perpetuation of domestic slavery and foreign wars.48
“RESISTANCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT”: It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, “How do ye do?” My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour —for the horse was soon tackled— was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen. This is the whole history of “My Prisons.” I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax- bill that I refuse to pay it.
47. The usual penalty for failure to pay the Massachusetts poll tax was property seizure and auction upon failure to display a stamped tax receipt, and was most certainly never imprisonment, but young Thoreau possessed few auctionable items and probably did not use a bank account. 48. During the one year 1845, in Massachusetts, the “poll tax” had been being reckoned as if it were a state tax, although in all other years it had been and would be reckoned as a municipality or county tax. As a town tax, and as a county tax, of course, it could hardly be considered to be in support of slavecatching or of foreign wars, since neither the Massachusetts towns nor the Massachusetts counties engaged in either slavecatching or the raising of armies. Also, even in the one year 1845, while this tax was being considered as a state tax, under the law no part of this revenue was to be used for the catching of fugitive slaves, and no foreign war was going on at the moment (the march upon Mexico had not yet fairly begun). Thoreau, therefore, in declining to pay voluntarily this tax bill, actually was not refusing to acknowledge slavery, as alleged, or a war effort, as alleged, but was refusing to recognize any political organization whatever. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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(I find it fascinating that Thoreau did not ever, in reminiscing about his famous night in the lockup, make any easy reference to the snippet of poetry that was quite as familiar to him as it is to all of us, from Richard Lovelace’s “To Althea from Prison.” –Thoreau wasn’t going for a hole-in-one!)
Walter Harding has tracked down what may well be the origin of the often-told but utterly spurious story, that Waldo Emerson came to visit Thoreau in his prison cell and expressed concern: he found a “Bringing Up Father” cartoon strip in the newspaper, in which Paddy was in jail for drunkenness, and when Jiggs asks him how come he was in jail Paddy retorts “How come you’re not?” Alcott has reported that Emerson’s reaction to the news of this was to find Thoreau’s stand to have been “mean and skulking, and in bad taste.” Therefore, is this not the point at which we can profitably ask, was Thoreau merely running away from his social responsibilities, as has been so often alleged, when he went out to live at Walden Pond? Let’s attach the humorous title “DECAMPING TO WALDEN POND: A GENDER 49 ANALYSIS BY MARTHA SAXTON” to the following quotation:
It seems, from exaggerated nineteenth-century sex definitions, that Victorians were afraid men and women might not be able to distinguish gender. So women were trussed, corseted, and bustled into immobility while men posed in musclebound attitudes of emotionless strength. this suppression of tenderness, warmth, and most expressions of feelings produced the male equivalent of the vapors. Louisa [May Alcott]’s teacher and secret love, Henry David Thoreau, decamped to Walden Pond rather than confront social demands that he be conventionally “male.”
49. On page 226 of her LOUISA MAY: A MODERN BIOGRAPHY OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, Saxton accused Thoreau of “unrelenting misogyny” as her way of elaborating on Bronson Alcott’s remark of November 5, 1858 that Thoreau was “better poised and more nearly self-sufficient than other men.” This caused me to look back to her title page and inspect the date of publication and say to myself, “Yeah, this thing was published back in 1977, the bad old days when we thought we had to combat male sexism by nurturing prejudice against anyone with a penis.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Another member of the Thoreau family, we don’t know who, paid the tax for him, as the tax had previously been paid by Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar when Alcott had almost been jailed on January 17, 1843. Although Emerson was irritated no end by such unseemly conduct, on the part of an associate, as failure to pay one’s share of the general tax burden, to his credit he did continue to press for publication of Thoreau’s A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS manuscript. However, at that time Thoreau was still preparing additions to the second draft.50
50. Lawrence, Jerome (1915-2004) and Robert Edwin Lee (1918-1994), THE NIGHT THOREAU SPENT IN JAIL: A PLAY. NY: Hill and Wang, 1971, Spotlight Dramabook #1223, c1970, c1972 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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I should make reference here to a snide remark that Albert J. von Frank has included at page 202 of his 1 AN EMERSON CHRONOLOGY. The sentence is as follows, in its entirety: “Henry Thoreau expressed his own anti-politics a month later by spending a night in jail for tax evasion, an act that drew Emerson’s quick disapproval, thought the principles behind the act, as Thoreau explained in ‘Civil Disobedience,’ had more in common with Emerson’s own position than he then suspected.” Now here are the things that I suppose to be quite wrongheaded about von Frank’s assertion, which would seem on its face simply to be praising Thoreau against Emerson: •“anti-politics” Thoreau’s act was not an act of anti-politics but an act of politics. To privilege assent over dissent in such a manner constitutes an unconscionable expression of mere partisanship. •“tax evasion” Thoreau’s act was not the act of a tax evader. A tax evader is a cheater, who is trying through secrecy or deception to get away with something. Thoreau’s act was the deliberate public act of a man who would rather be imprisoned than assist in ongoing killing, and thus is in an entirely separate category from such cheating. To conflate two such separate categories, one of self-service and the other of self-abnegation, into a single category, in such manner, is, again, an unconscionable expression of prejudicial politics. •“had more in common” The implication here is that Emerson’s attitudes constitute the baseline for evaluation of Thoreau’s attitudes, so that Thoreau may be condescendingly praised for imitating Emerson whenever the two thinkers can be made to seem in agreement, while preserving the option of condemning him as a resistor or worse whenever these contemporaries seem at loggerheads. –But this is unconscionable.
Albert J. von Frank. AN EMERSON CHRONOLOGY. NY: G.K. Hall & Co. and Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1994 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Emerson to his journal:
These rabble at Washington are really better than the snivelling opposition. They have a sort of genius of a bold & manly cast, though Satanic. They see, against the unanimous expression of the people, how much a little well directed effrontery can achieve, how much crime the people will bear, & they proceed from step to step & it seems they have calculated but too justly upon your Excellency, O Governor Briggs. Mr Webster told them how much the war cost, that was his protest, but voted the war, & sends his son to it. They calculated rightly on Mr Webster. My friend Mr Thoreau has gone to jail rather than pay his tax. On him they could not calculate. The abolitionists denounce the war & give much time to it, but they pay the tax. The State is a poor good beast who means the best: it means friendly. A poor cow who does well by you — do not grudge it its hay. It cannot eat bread as you can, let it have without grudge a little grass for its four stomachs. It will not stint to yield you milk from its teat. You who are a man walking cleanly on two feet will not pick a quarrel with a poor cow. Take this handful of clover & welcome. But if you go to hook me when I walk in the fields, then, poor cow, I will cut your throat.
DANIEL WEBSTER We now understand that Sheriff Sam was considerably twisting the law under which he confined Thoreau for nonpayment of that $5 or $6 arrears of poll tax, and for his own convenience. For what the law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts required him to do in regard to such a tax resistor, prior to debt imprisonment, was to attempt to seize and sell some of Thoreau’s assets, such as the books he had in storage in his parents’ boardinghouse in Concord. Sheriff Staples hadn’t been inclined to do this and at this point didn’t have time because he was leaving office — and the sad fact of the matter is that, since he was merely under contract as a “tax farmer,” had he vacated his position without collecting this money from the Thoreau family, Massachusetts would simply have deducted the sum from his final paycheck (bottom line, The Man always takes his cut). For here is that law, and it simply offers no support whatever for what Sheriff Staples did to put pressure on Thoreau: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Section 7. If any person shall refuse or neglect to pay his [poll] tax, the collector shall levy the same by distress and sale of his goods, excepting the good following, namely: • The tools or implements necessary for his trade or occupation; • beasts of the plow necessary for the cultivation of his improved lands; • military arms, utensils for house keeping necessary for upholding life, and bedding and apparel necessary for himself and family. Section 8. The collector shall keep the goods distrained, at the expense of the owner, for the space of four days, at the least, and shall, within seven days after the seizure, sell the same by public auction, for the payment of the tax and the charges of keeping and of the sale, having given notice of such sale, by posting up a notification thereof, in some public place in the town, forty eight hours at least before the sale. Section 11. If the collector cannot find sufficient goods, upon which it may be levied, he may take the body of such person and commit him to prison, there to remain, until he shall pay the tax and charges of commitment and imprisonment, or shall be discharged by order of law.
TIMELINE OF WALDEN
After July 24: In my short experience of human life I have found that the outward obstacles which stood in my way were not living men –but dead institutions It has been unspeakably grateful & refreshing to make my way through the crowd of this latest generation honest & dishonest virtuous & vicious as through the dewy grass –men are as innocent as the morning to the early riser –and unsuspicious pilgrim and many an early traveller which he met on his way v poetry –but the institutions as church –state –the school property &c are grim and ghostly phantoms like Moloch & Juggernaut because of the blind reverence paid to them. When I have indulged a poets dream of a terrestrial paradise I have not foreseen that any cossack or Chipeway –would disturb it –but some monster institution would swallow it– The only highway man I ever met was the state itself– When I have refused to pay the tax which it demanded for that protection I did not want itself has robbed me– When I have asserted the freedom it declared it has imprisoned me. I love mankind I hate the institutions of their forefathers– What are the sermons of the church but the Dudleian lectures –against long extinct perhaps always imaginary evils, which he dead generations have willed and so the bell still tolls to call us to the funeral service which a generation can rightly demand but once. It is singular that not the Devil himself –has been in my way but these cobwebs –which tradition says were originally spun to obstruct the fiend. If I will not fight –if I will not pray –if I will not be taxed –if I will not bury the unsettled prairie –my neighbor will still tolerate me nd sometimes even sustains me –but not the state. And should our piety derive its origin still from that exploit of pius Aenaeus who bore his father Anchises on his shoulders from the ruins of Troy Not thieves & highwaymen but Constables & judges –not sinners but priests –not the ignorant but pedants & pedagogues –not foreign foes but standing armies –not pirates but men of war. Not free malevolence –but organized benevolence. For instance the jailer or constable as a mere man and neighbor –with life in him intended for this particular 3 score years & ten –may be a right worthy man with a thought in the brain of him –but as the officer & tool of the state he has no more understanding or heart than his prison key or his staff– This is what is saddest that men HDT WHAT? INDEX
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should voluntarily assume the character & office of brute nature.– Certainly there are modes enough by which a man may put bread into his mouth which will not prejudice him as a companion & neighbor. There are stones enough in the path of the traveller with out a man’s adding his own body to the number. There probably never were worse crimes committed since time began than in the present Mexican war –to take a single instance– And yet I have not yet learned the name or residence and probably never should of the reckless vilain who should father them– all concerned –from the political contriver to the latest recruit possess an average share of virtue & of vice the vilainy is in the readiness with which men, doing outrage to their proper natures –lend themselves to perform the office of inferior & brutal ones. The stern command is –move or ye shall be moved –be the master of your own action –or you shall unawares become the tool of the meanest slave. Any can command him who doth not command himself. Let men be men & stones be stones and we shall see if majorities do rule. Countless reforms are called for because society is not animated or instinct enough with life, but like snakes I have seen in early spring –with alternate portions torpid & flexible –so that they could wriggle neither way. All men more or less are buried partially in the grave of custom, and of some we see only a few hairs upon the crown above ground. Better are the physically dead for they more lively rot. Those who have stolen estate to be defended slaves to be kept in service –who would pause with the last inspiration & perpetuate it –require the aid of institutions –the stereotyped and petrified will of the past But they who are something to defend –who are not to be enslaved themselves – –who are up with their time – ask no such hinderance THOMAS CARLYLE Carlyle’s is not the most lasting words nor the loftiest wisdom –but for his genius it was reserved at last to furnish expression for the thoughts that were throbbing in a million breasts– It has plucked the ripest fruit in the public garden– But this fruit now least concerned the tree that bore it –which was rather perfecting the bud at the foot of the leaf stalk. Carlyle is wonderfully true to the impressions on his own mind, but not to the simple facts themselves. He portrays the former so freshly and vividly –that his words reawaken and appeal to our whole Experience But when reinforced by this terrible critic we return to his page his words are found not to be coincident with the thing and inadequate and there is no host worthy to entertain the guest he has invited. On this remote shore we adventurously landed unknown to any of the human inhabitants to this day – But we still remember well the gnarled and hospitable oaks, which were not strangers to us, the lone horse in his pasture and the patient ruminating herd whose path to the river so judiciously chosen to overcome the difficulty of the ascent we followed and disturbed their repose in the shade. And the cool free aspect of the wild apple trees, generously proffering their fruit to the wayfarers though still green and crude. The hard round glossy fruit which if not ripe –still is not poison but New English –brought hither its ancestor by our ancestors once. And up the rocky channel of a brook we scrambled which had long served nature for the sluice in these parts leaping from rock –through tangled woods at the bottom of a ravine, darker and darker it grew and more hoarse, the murmur of the stream –until we reached the ruins of a mill where now the ivy grew and the trout glanced through the raceway and the flume. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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And the dreams and speculations of some early settler was our theme
But now “no war nor battle’s sound” Invades this peaceful battle ground but waves of Concord murmuring by With sweetly fluent harmony. But since we sailed, some things have failed And many a dream gone down the stream Here then a venerable shepherd dwellt ...... The Reverend Ezra Ripley Who to his flock his substance dealt And ruled them with a vigorous crook By precept of the sacred Book. But he the pierless bridge passed o’er And now the solitary shore Knoweth his trembling steps no more. Anon a youthful pastor came ...... Nathaniel Hawthorne Whose crook was not unknown to fame His lambs he viewed with gentle glance Dispersed o’er a wide expanse, And fed with “mosses from the Manse” We view the rocky shore where late With soothed and patient ear we sat Under our Hawthorne in the dale And listened to his Twice told Tale. It comes on murmuring to itself by the base of stately and retired mountains –through dark primitive woods – whose juices it receives and where the bear still drinks it– Where the cabins of settlers are still fresh and far between, and there are few that cross its stream. Enjoying still its cascades unknown to fame perhaps unseen as yet by man –alone by itself –by the long ranges of the mountains of Sandwich and of Squam with sometimes MT. KEARSARGE the peak of Moose hillock the Haystack & Kearsarge reflected in its waters. Where the maple and the raspberry that lover of the mountains flourish amid temperate dews. Flowing as long and mysterious and untranslateable as its name Pemigewasset. By many a pastured Pielion and Ossa where unnamed muses haunt, and receiving the tribute of many an untasted Helicon Not all these hills does it lave but I have experienced that to see the sun set behind them avails as much as to have travelled to them. From where the old Man of the Mountain overlooks one of its head waters –in the Franconia Notch, taking the basin and the Flume in its way –washing the sites of future villages –not impatient. For every mountain stream is more than Helicon, tended by oreads dryads Naiads, and such a pure and fresh inspirit draught gift of the gods as it will take a newer than this New England to know the flavor of.
Such water do the gods distill And pour down hill For their new England men. A draught of this wild water bring And I will never taste the spring Of Helicon again. But yesterday in dew it fell This morn its streams began to swell And with the sun it downward flowed So fresh it hardly knew its road. Falling all the way, not discouraged by the lowest fall –for it intends to rise again. There are earth air fire & water –very well, this is water. down it comes that is the way with it. It was already water of Squam and Newfound lake and Winnipiseogee, and White mountain snow dissolved on which we were floating –and Smith’s and Bakers and Mad rivers and Nashua and Souhegan and Piscataquoag –and Suncook & Soucook & Contoocook –mingled in incalculable proportions –still fluid yellowish restless all with an inclination seaward but boyant. Here then we will leave them to saw and grind and spin for a season, and I fear there will be no vacation at low water for they are said to have Squam and Newfound lake and Winipiseogee for their mill ponds. By the law of its birth never to become stagnant for it has come out of the clouds, and down the sides of precipices worn in the flood through beaver dams broke loose not splitting but splicing and mending itself until it found a breatheing plaace in this lowland– No danger now that the sun will steal it back to heaven again HDT WHAT? INDEX
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before it reach the sea for it has a warrant even to recover its own dews into its bosom again with every eve We wandered on by the side and over the brows of hoar hills and mountains –& through notches which the stream had made –looking down one sunday morning over Bethlehem amid the bleating of sheep, and hearing as we walked the loud spoken prayers of the inhabitants –like crusaders strolled out from the camp in Palestine–51 And looking in to learning’s little tenement by the way –where some literate swain earns his ten dollars by the month –after the harvest –with rows of slates and well cut benches round –as well cut as farther south –not noticing the herd of swine which had poured in at the open door, and made a congregation– So we went on over hill and dale through the stumpy rocky –woody –bepastured country –until we crossed a rude wooden bridge over the Amonnoosuck and breathed the free air of the Unappropriated Land. Now we were in a country where inns begin– And we too now began to have our ins and outs– Some sweet retired house whose sign only availed to creak but bore no Phoenix nor golden eagle but such as the sun and rain had painted there – –a demi public demi private house –where each apartment seems too private for your use –too public for your hosts. One I remember where Landlord and lady hung painted as if retired from active life –upon the wall –remarkable one might almost say –if he knew not the allowed degrees of consanguinity for a family likeness –a singular deflexion of the nose turned each to each –so that the total variation could not have been better represented than in the picture. –But here at any rate the cream rose thick upon the milk –and there was refreshment One “Tilton’s Inn” tooo sheltered us which it were well worth remembering, in Thornton it was where towns begin to serve as gores only to hold the world together –reached late in the evening and left before the sun rose. But the remembrance of an entertainment still remains and among publicans Tiltons name still stands conspicuous in our diary. But where we took our ease was not Canterbury street, no Four corners nor Five points –no trivial place where 3 roads meet but hardly one road held together– A dank forest path –more like an otter’s or a marten’s trail or where a beaver had dragged his trap than where the wheels of travel ever raised a dust. The pigeon sat secure above our heads high on the dead limbs of the pine reduced to robins size– The very yard of our hostelries was inclined upon the skirts of mountains and as we passed we looked up at angle at the stems of maples waving in the clouds –and late at evening we heard the drear bleating of innumerable flocks upon the mountains sides seeming to hold unequal parley with the bears Shuddered through the Franconia where the thermometer is spliced for winter use, saw the blue earth heaved into mountain waves from Agiocochook, and where the Umbagog Ossipee and Squam gleamed like dewy cobwebs in the sun– And like bright ribbons the streamlets of Connecticut Saco & adroscoggin “take up their mountain march– Went on our way silent & humble through the Notch –heard the lambs bleat in Bartlett on the mountains late at night –looked back on Conway peak –threaded the woods of Norway pine –and saw the Great Spirit smile in Winnipiseogee52 Varro advises to plant in Quincunx order in order not to “obstruct the beneficial effects of the sun and moon and air,” and adds “nuts, when they are whole, which you might comprize in one modius, because nature confines the kernels in their proper places, when they are broken, can hardly be held in a measure of a modius and a half.” Vines thus planted produce more fruit “more must and oil, and of greater value”. I read in Varro that “Caesar Vopiscus AEdilicius, when he pleaded before the Censors, said that the grounds of Rosea were the gardens [(sedes)] of Italy, in which a pole being left would not be visible the day after, on account of the growth of the herbage.” This soil was not remarkably fertile yet I was so well contented with myself it may be & with my entertainment –that I was really remind of this anecdote. In speaking of “the dignity of the herd” Varro suggests that the object of the Argonautic expedition was a ram’s fleece the gold apples of the Hesperides were by the ambiguity of language [] goats and sheep which 51. We wandered on (by the side and over the brows of hoar hills and mountains — & through notches which the stream had with awe made — looking down ^one sunday morn- ing over Bethlehem amid the bleating of sheep, and hearing as we walked the loud spoken prayers of the inhabi- where every house seemd to us a holy sepulchre tants — like crusaders strolled out from Richards as if we were the camp in Palestine — (T 74) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Hercules imported –the stars and signs bear their names the AEgean sea has its name from the goat and mountains and straits have hence their names –sic. The Bosphorus Piso makes Italy to be from Vitulis– The Romans were shepherds “Does not the fine [mulcta, a mulgendo] that was by ancient custom paid in kind refer to this?” The oldest coins bore the figures of cattle and the Roman names Porcius –Ovinus Caprilius & the surnames Equitius, Taurus, Capra Vitulus. Vide Cato “Of purchasing an Estate –” “How an estate is to be planted –” &c in Lat & Eng.
I will insert here some commentary on this early draft of material that would wind up in the “Monday” chapter of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS:
A WEEK: If, for instance, a man asserts the value of individual liberty over the merely political commonweal, his neighbor still tolerates him, that is he who is living near him, sometimes even sustains him, but never the State. Its officer, as a living man, may have human virtues and a thought in his brain, but as the tool of an institution, a jailer or constable it may be, he is not a whit superior to his prison key or his staff. Herein is the tragedy; that men doing outrage to their proper natures, even those called wise and good, lend themselves to perform the office of inferior and brutal ones. Hence come war and slavery in; and what else may not come in by this opening? But certainly there are modes by which a man may put bread into his mouth which will not prejudice him as a companion and neighbor.
The following is, if I recall correctly and can trust my notes, from William Bronk’s THE BROTHER IN ELYSIUM: IDEAS OF FRIENDSHIP AND SOCIETY IN THE UNITED STATES (1980), pages 104-106: The crux of the matter is that Thoreau believed that all evil did come in through the opening formed when any man might so betray his own nature as to lend himself to perform an inhuman office. While it might be contended that good and evil are something to be done at will and according to will, without reference to our own constitutions, — that we are of indifferent 52.
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or irrelevant moral quality ourselves, and are able to choose between a good act and an evil one and so determine by the excess of one kind of action over the other our own moral quality and the moral quality of the world, yet it was Thoreau’s contention that the process by which good and evil came into being was more exacting and natural, less arbitrary than this. He believed that it was always necessary to make the choice between good and evil whenever such a choice was presented, but he also believed that in most cases, the choice was not presented, and that evil resulted in some mysterious way without anyone’s willing it, or being aware of it, and even to everyone’s surprise and chagrin. Thoreau accounted for this phenomenon by saying that being is more important and more effective than doing. Anything therefore might happen to us which was consistent with the nature we took for ourselves, even though the process by which the happening came about was so subtle or so complicated that we missed the apprehension of it, even after its end. If. as Thoreau said, we do outrage to our proper nature, — if we take our identity from the state, then we become liable to the evils of the state, and have no defense against war and slavery, since it has none. It is only by refusing to do the office of inferior and brutal natures that we can hope to escape, on our own part, treatment which in its brutality is suited to inferior natures. We must be treated according to the nature which we determine shall be ours. We can win or lose, or act in any other way, only in accordance with terms we set for ourselves. The identity which Thoreau wished us to find, which left no opening for the evil we claimed to deplore, was most certainly not to be found in the state; and neither was it to be found in any other external form, for its essence was personal. It was to be found only through that steady communion with one’s deepest desires and insights, which was called silence. He found no evil and little that was ambiguous in silence. It is easier to see now, of course, why Thoreau rejected philanthropy and reform, since to find one’s identity, to become personal, was truly to ennoble one’s being; it was to enjoy those moments of serene and self-confident life which were better than whole campaigns of daring; it was to combat evil directly by leaving no opening by which it could enter. Philanthropy’s method was less direct. It offered the goodness of actions as an excuse and substitute for being. Reform was an attempt to avoid a change in true form by changing the surface only. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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August 31, Monday-September 10: Henry Thoreau went on his 1st trip to the Maine wilderness, with his cousin-by- marriage George Augustus Thatcher. If the locomotive that pulled Thoreau’s train out of the railroad station in Boston that day was one of the newest ones manufactured by the company of Matthias W. Baldwin in Philadelphia in 1846, this may have been what it looked like:
HISTORY OF RR
Or, this may have been what it looked like, since we know Baldwin’s company had begun to manufacture such a model for the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad:
(Would it be wrong to suggest, Thoreau was being haunted by what that old Indian had said to him on the dock in Oldtown in 1838? ) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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The cousin adventurers went by rail via Boston to Portland and then by night steamship to Bangor, by stagecoach to Mattawamkeag, by batteau up the Penobscot River into North Twin Lake and to Sowadahunk
deadwater, climbed Mount Ktaadn, and then Thoreau returned by ship. His notes of the climb at that point were no more than: “climb tree — torrent — camping ground — leave party — go up torrent — fir trees — lakes — rocks — camp — green fish — fire at night — wind up ravine.” He then wrote, but decided not to domesticate, a seven-page account of Agiocochook. (Instead, he expanded the Saddleback episode eventually for use in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS.)
TIMELINE OF THE MAINE WOODS
Aug 31st 1846 Concord to Boston– Rail road Station –tall man –sailors short of money –cars to Portland Passenger to Umbagog. Sea shore –Salem tunnel no water hay cocks –Portsmouth North Berwick HDT WHAT? INDEX
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–Saco –Portland –Capt’s office –White head light –sailor –owls head Thomaston –Camden –Belfast –Bangor–
(The map prepared by Tom Funk which shows the route of this journey, and the one Thoreau would make in 1857, can be viewed on the following screens.)
In the “KTAADN” essay that would be based primarily on this trip, Thoreau would comment that a local farmer who seemed by inference to have been attempting also to grow tomatoes had even in that remote area been infected by the potato rot though he had used seed of his own raising! I think he said that he was the first to bring a plough and a cow so far; and he might have added the last, with only two exceptions. The potato-rot had found him out here, too, the previous year, and got half or two thirds of his crop, though FAMINE the seed was of his own raising. Oats, grass, and potatoes were his staples; but he raised, also, a few carrots and turnips, and “a little corn for the hens,” for this was all that he dared risk, for fear that it would not ripen. Melons, squashes, sweet- corn, beans, tomatoes, and many other vegetables, could not be ripened there.
Since the late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans affects both potato and tomato plants, it would be possible that the source of this isolated farm’s potato rot occurring in potatoes grown from local seed would have been that the farmer had brought in tomato seedlings containing the fungus.53 IRISH POTATO FAMINE
Irish Acreage in Potatoes Year Acres
1845 >2,000,000
1846 >1,000,000
1847 300,000 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Irish Acreage in Potatoes Year Acres
1848 700,000
53. The Irish potato famines of the mid-19th century were caused by a late blight disease which occurs in humid regions with temperature ranges of between 40 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit; hot, dry weather checks its spread. The Phytophthora fungus survives in stored tubers, in dump piles, in field plants, and in greenhouse tomatoes. The sporangia are airborne to nearby plants, in which infection may occur within a few hours. At temperatures below 59 degrees Fahrenheit the sporangia germinate by producing zoospores that encyst and later form a germ tube. Above that temperature most sporangia produce a germ tube directly. Foliage blighting and a new crop of sporangia are produced within four to six days after infection. The cycle is repeated as long as cool, moist weather prevails. Potato or tomato vines that are infected may rot within two weeks. The disease destroyed more than half of the tomato crop in the eastern United States in 1946, leading to the establishment of a blight-forecasting service in 1947. When plants have become infected, lesions (round or irregularly shaped areas that range in color from dark green to purplish black and resemble frost injury) appear on leaves, petioles, and stems. A whitish growth of spore-producing structures may appear at the margin of the lesions on the underleaf surfaces. Potato tubers develop rot up to 0.6 inch deep. Secondary fungi and bacteria (Erwinia) often invade potato tubers and produce rotting that results in great losses during storage, transit, and marketing. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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HERE THEN IS MY NEW THEORY
Various scholars have alleged that in the Irish Potato Famine, we have a case of genocide. Dr. Edward Brennan, Ireland’s ambassador to Canada, has noted: “The Great Famine was Ireland’s holocaust (which) condemned the Irish to be the first boat people of modern Europe.” Weary men, what reap ye? Golden corn for the Stranger. What sow ye? Human corpses that await the Avenger. Fainting forms, all hunger stricken, what see you in the offing? Stately ships to bear our food away amid the stranger’s scoffing. There’s a proud array of soldiers, what do they round your door? They guard our masters’ granaries from the hands of the poor. Pale mothers, wherefore weeping? Would to God that we were dead. Our children swoon before us, and we cannot give them bread! We are wretches, famished, scorned, human tools to build your pride, But God will yet take vengeance for the souls for whom Christ died. Now is your hour of pleasure, bask ye in the world’s caress; But our whitening bones against ye will arise as witnesses, >From the cabins and the ditches, in their charred, uncoffined masses, For the Angel of the Trumpet will know them as he passes. A ghastly spectral army before God we’ll stand And arraign ye as our murderers, O spoilers of our land! The Irish labor leader James Connolly alleged that “The English administration of Ireland during the ‘famine’ was a colossal crime against the human race.” The allegation has repeatedly been made by Irish patriots that their nation did not starve for want of potatoes, but because still-available foodstuffs, 30 to 40 shiploads per day, were being removed while this removal process was being guarded by 200,000 British soldiers organized as what amounted to Food Removal Regiments. Be that as it may, apologists for British conduct during this period of food scarcity would do well to ponder the characterization of British colonialism in Ireland by William Makepiece Thackeray: It is a frightful document against ourselves ... one of the most melancholy stories in the whole world of insolence, rapine, brutal, endless slaughter and persecution on the part of the English master ... no crime ever invented by eastern or western barbarians, no torture or Roman persecution or Spanish Inquisition, no tyranny of Nero or Alva but can be matched in the history of England in Ireland. In 1861 in THE LAST CONQUEST OF IRELAND, John Mitchel wrote: The Almighty indeed sent the potato blight but the English created the famine. Mitchel further observed that: ... a million and half men, women and children were carefully, prudently and peacefully slain by the English government. They died of hunger in the midst of abundance which their own hands created. There was no famine. There can be no famine in a country overflowing with food. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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A London Times editorial of September 30, 1845, warned: “In England the two main meals of a working man’s day now consists of potatoes.” Grossly over-populated relative to its food supply, England’s overdependence on imported foodstuffs was similar to Ireland’s overdependence on the potato. In in 1844 the European potato crop failed, causing food prices to rise, before in 1845 the blight hit the offshore potato crop. England was itself facing famine unless it could import vast amounts of alternative food but didn’t grab Irish food merely to save itself. It took this food in part in order to decimate the population of Ireland. Queen Victoria’s economist, Nassau Senior, would express a fear that the plan would “kill only one million Irish, and that will scarcely be enough to do much good.” Treasury Chief Charles Trevelyan refused entry to an American food ship and, when an eyewitness urged a stop, responded, “We must not complain of what we really want to obtain.” Thomas Carlyle exulted: “Ireland is like a half-starved rat that crosses the path of an elephant. What must the elephant do? Squelch it, by heavens, squelch it.” “TOTAL ANNIHILATION,” offered a London Times headline of September 2, 1846; and in 1848 an editorialist exulted that “A Celt will soon be as rare on the banks of the Shannon as a red man on the banks of Manhattan.” Here, however, we have a new theory as to how the blight microorganism which caused the Irish Potato Famine originally made its way to Ireland, and this new theory does not allege English purposefulness and therefore does not allege English genocide. It merely ascribes something to the English which we all know to be, anyway, utterly characteristic of them: unconsciousness. We know that epidemiologically, the microorganism came from Mexico or Peru to the Eastern seaboard of the United States to the Low Countries to England and Ireland. That’s a given, extrapolated from the years in which the microorganism began to destroy potato crops in these various areas. This is evidence that it seems unlikely, will ever be challengeable. We believe we know, on the basis of the movement of infected potatoes, how the microorganism made its way from Mexico or Peru to the Eastern seaboard of the United States. We believe we know, likewise, on the basis of the movement of infected potatoes, how the microorganism made its way from the Eastern seaboard of the United States to the Low Countries of Europe. That historical research has been done. What we don’t have much evidence for, what to this point we have never bothered to research, is specifically how the blight microorganism then made its way across the English and Irish channels, to infect crops on these islands north of Europe. The only existing theory is that the microorganism was wafted across these bodies of water on the cool winds. That is, the culprit was a cool season. Nobody’s fault. The only thing that this theory has had going for it, is that it has been the only theory in existence. This must have been what happened, we say, because there’s no other available explanation. The blight was blown by the wind. Nobody’s fault. What has recently been noticed, however, is that the potato plant and the tomato plant, both Solanaceas, are both carriers of the microorganism. The microorganism blights potatoes but has no noticeable impact on tomatoes. Nevertheless, it is at least as easy for this particular microorganism to be carried from place to place, by the human transportation of tomatoes and of tomato plants, as it is for it to be carried from place to place, by the human transportation of potatoes and of potato plants. In fact, it is more likely that during the time period in question we would have indulged in the transportation of the blight microorganism by our relocation of healthy- seeming tomato materials, than that we would have indulged in the transportation of noticeably infected and inferior potato materials. We have seen a situation in which there was an isolated potato farm in the backwoods of Maine, that for years during the potato blight was free of the microorganism. Then the farmer went to town and got some tomato plants and took them home in his wagon! The next year his potatoes turned to mush and he wondered why. (We know of this because Henry David Thoreau made a note of it in his journal of his trip to Maine, preparatory for his writing the series of articles we know as THE MAINE WOODS.) During the period in question the potato was bulk food for the most vulnerable classes but the tomato was in an entirely different category of alimentation. The potato provided calories, vitamins, and minerals for the needy. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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The tomato was, however, a mere specialty food, a salet item relatively lacking in calories and in vitamins (yes, tomatoes are low in vitamins), a comestible for the delight of the well-to-do and easily bored. Roughly, that social distinction between the needy and the bored correlates, in the context of Ireland, with the gross social distinction we think of as — the Irish versus the English. If some well-to-do, easily bored English resident of Ireland had imported tomato plants to be grown in his or her garden on his or her estate in Ireland, either from the Eastern seaboard of the United States or from the Low Countries of Europe, during the period in question, that could have been an alternative vector for the transmission of the microorganism across the channels of water that isolate England and Ireland. Therefore we now have two competing theories, not one unchallenged theory, for how the blight microorganism made its way to Ireland. The original theory, that the microorganism was wafted to Ireland on the cool winds of an unusual season, nobody’s fault –a theory that has never had any real evidence to support it, a theory that has stood unchallenged because it has been the only theory available– no longer stands alone and unchallenged. We badly need to do historical research into the movement of tomatoes and of tomato plants during the period in question. Did some English resident of Ireland import tomatoes or tomato plants into Ireland just prior to the Irish Potato Famine? Was the Irish Potato Famine induced among the poor Irish, unbenownst, merely in order to grace the tables of the English with a novelty salet item? I myself take no position in this matter, other than to insist that further historical inquiry is now indicated. I make no accusation that, if tomato material was indeed the vector for the intrusion of this blight, and if English residents of Ireland brought this tomato material, that they did this on purpose to destroy the improvident Irish who, they were commenting at that time, were such a bother to them. (In such a case, the totality of the comment which I might personally make would be: “How convenient it can be when we happen inadvertently to strike two birds with the same stone!”) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1848
In the Franconia Notch, to the west of The Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Flume House hotel was opened.
The botanist William Oakes provided the tourist industry with a collection of lithographs and essays entitled SCENERY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. The Great Stone Face was sketched from a number of angles. The artist remarked that “although there is a little feebleness about the mouth ... the face of the ‘Old Man of the Mountain’ is set, and his countenance fixed and firm.” He also pointed up the fact that this was all in the eye of the beholder, for from farther over to the left, the profile could be seen as a mere “toothless old woman in a mob cap.” However, whether the character of New England was to be seen as an old man or as an old woman, by this point the real character of New England was to be found in these backwater regions: Once northern New England had been looked on as the backwater of the region, where residents were little removed from barbarism. Timothy Dwight, in his famous early nineteenth-century travels through New England, saw little sign in the northern back country of the literacy, godliness, sobriety, and thrift he found in southern New England. But in the late nineteenth century, the “real” New England was apparently being pushed out of the crowded cities of Massachusetts and Connecticut, into the villages of Vermont and New Hampshire. Northern New England was increasingly considered the true home of New England’s heritage, both moral and racial. Because of that perceived shift, the fate of the northern New England states was becoming increasingly significant for the many people, both outside and inside the region, who looked to the region for the preservation of values threatened by the explosion of the great industrial immigrant cities. Dona Brown adds to this, on page 239, the observation that “In the next few decades, reformers in both the country life and the eugenics movements attempted to attack the problems of ‘degeneration’ in rural New England through a variety of means ranging from consolidating rural churches to sterilizing rural ‘defectives.’ For an intriguing account of the Vermont eugenics crusade, se Kevin Dann, ‘From Degeneration to Regeneration: The Eugenics Survey of Vermont, 1925-1936,’ Vermont History 59, Number 1 (Winter 1991).” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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March 29, Wednesday: Arthur Buckminster Fuller, after leaving the Cambridge Divinity School of Harvard College, was ordained as pastor of the Unitarian Society in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Margaret Fuller reported to the New-York Tribune from Rome on the revolutions of that springtime season on the Italian peninsula: Rome, March 29, 1848. It is long since I have written. My health entirely gave way beneath the Roman winter. The rain was constant, commonly falling in torrents from the 16th of December to the 19th of March. Nothing could surpass the dirt, the gloom, the desolation, of Rome. Let no one fancy he has seen her who comes here only in the winter. It is an immense mistake to do so. I cannot sufficiently rejoice that I did not first see Italy in the winter. The climate of Rome at this time of extreme damp I have found equally exasperating and weakening. I have had constant nervous headache without strength to bear it, nightly fever, want of appetite. Some constitutions bear it better, but the complaint of weakness and extreme dejection of spirits is general among foreigners in the wet season. The English say they become acclimated in two or three years, and cease to suffer, though never so strong as at home. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Now this long dark dream — to me the most idle and most suffering season of my life — seems past. The Italian heavens wear again their deep blue; the sun shines gloriously; the melancholy lustres are stealing again over the Campagna, and hundreds of larks sing unwearied above its ruins. Nature seems in sympathy with the great events that are transpiring, — with the emotions which are swelling the hearts of men. The morning sun is greeted by the trumpets of the Roman legions marching out once more, now not to oppress but to defend. The stars look down on their jubilees over the good news which nightly reaches them from their brothers of Lombardy. This week has been one of nobler, sweeter feeling, of a better hope and faith, than Rome in her greatest days ever knew. How much has happened since I wrote! First, the victorious resistance of Sicily and the revolution of Naples. This has led us yet only to half-measures, but even these have been of great use to the progress of Italy. The Neapolitans will probably have to get rid at last of the stupid crowned head who is at present their puppet; but their bearing with him has led to the wiser sovereigns granting these constitutions, which, if eventually inadequate to the wants of Italy, will be so useful, are so needed, to educate her to seek better, completer forms of administration. In the midst of all this serious work came the play of Carnival, in which there was much less interest felt than usual, but enough to dazzle and captivate a stranger. One thing, however, has been omitted in the description of the Roman Carnival; i.e. that it rains every day. Almost every day came on violent rain, just as the tide of gay masks was fairly engaged in the Corso. This would have been well worth bearing once or twice, for the sake of seeing the admirable good humor of this people. Those who had laid out all their savings in the gayest, thinnest dresses, on carriages and chairs for the Corso, found themselves suddenly drenched, their finery spoiled, and obliged to ride and sit shivering all the afternoon. But they never murmured, never scolded, never stopped throwing their flowers. Their strength of constitution is wonderful. While I, in my shawl and boa, was coughing at the open window from the moment I inhaled the wet sepulchral air, the servant-girls of the house had taken off their woollen gowns, and, arrayed in white muslins and roses, sat in the drenched street beneath the drenching rain, quite happy, and have suffered nothing in consequence. The Romans renounced the Moccoletti, ostensibly as an expression of sympathy for the sufferings of the Milanese, but really because, at that time, there was great disturbance about the Jesuits, and the government feared that difficulties would arise in the excitement of the evening. But, since, we have had this entertainment in honor of the revolutions of France and Austria, and nothing could be more beautiful. The fun usually consists in all the people blowing one another’s lights out. We had not this; all the little tapers were left to blaze, and the long Corso swarmed with tall fire-flies. Lights crept out over the HDT WHAT? INDEX
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surface of all the houses, and such merry little twinkling lights, laughing and flickering with each slightest movement of those who held them! Up and down the Corso they twinkled, they swarmed, they streamed, while a surge of gay triumphant sound ebbed and flowed beneath that glittering surface. Here and there danced men carrying aloft moccoli, and clanking chains, emblem of the tyrannic power now vanquished by the people; — the people, sweet and noble, who, in the intoxication of their joy, were guilty of no rude or unkindly word or act, and who, no signal being given as usual for the termination of their diversion, closed, of their own accord and with one consent, singing the hymns for Pio, by nine o’clock, and retired peacefully to their homes, to dream of hopes they yet scarce understand. This happened last week. The news of the dethronement of Louis Philippe reached us just after the close of the Carnival. It was just a year from my leaving Paris. I did not think, as I looked with such disgust on the empire of sham he had established in France, and saw the soul of the people imprisoned and held fast as in an iron vice, that it would burst its chains so soon. Whatever be the result, France has done gloriously; she has declared that she will not be satisfied with pretexts while there are facts in the world, — that to stop her march is a vain attempt, though the onward path be dangerous and difficult. It is vain to cry, Peace! peace! when there is no peace. The news from France, in these days, sounds ominous, though still vague. It would appear that the political is being merged in the social struggle: it is well. Whatever blood is to be shed, whatever altars cast down, those tremendous problems MUST be solved, whatever be the cost! That cost cannot fail to break many a bank, many a heart, in Europe, before the good can bud again out of a mighty corruption. To you, people of America, it may perhaps be given to look on and learn in time for a preventive wisdom. You may learn the real meaning of the words FRATERNITY, EQUALITY: you may, despite the apes of the past who strive to tutor you, learn the needs of a true democracy. You may in time learn to reverence, learn to guard, the true aristocracy of a nation, the only really nobles, — the LABORING CLASSES. And Metternich, too, is crushed; the seed of the woman has had his foot on the serpent. I have seen the Austrian arms dragged through the streets of Rome and burned in the Piazza del Popolo. The Italians embraced one another, and cried, Miracolo! Providenza! the modern Tribune Ciceronacchio fed the flame with faggots; Adam Mickiewicz, the great poet of Poland, long exiled from his country or the hopes of a country, looked on, while Polish women, exiled too, or who perhaps, like one nun who is here, had been daily scourged by the orders of a tyrant, brought little pieces that had been scattered in the street and threw them into the flames, — an offering received by the Italians with loud plaudits. It was a transport of the people, who found no way to vent their joy, but the symbol, the poesy, natural to the Italian mind. The ever-too-wise “upper classes” regret it, and the Germans choose to resent it as an insult to Germany; but it was HDT WHAT? INDEX
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nothing of the kind; the insult was to the prisons of Spielberg, to those who commanded the massacres of Milan, — a base tyranny little congenial to the native German heart, as the true Germans of Germany are at this moment showing by their resolves, by their struggles. When the double-headed eagle was pulled down from above the lofty portal of the Palazzo di Venezia, the people placed there in its stead one of white and gold, inscribed with the name ALTA ITALIA, and quick upon the emblem followed the news that Milan was fighting against her tyrants, — that Venice had driven them out and freed from their prisons the courageous Protestants in favor of truth, Tommaso and Manin, — that Manin, descendant of the last Doge, had raised the republican banner on the Place St. Mark, — and that Modena, that Parma, were driving out the unfeeling and imbecile creatures who had mocked Heaven and man by the pretence of government there. With indescribable rapture these tidings were received in Rome. Men were seen dancing, women weeping with joy along the street. The youth rushed to enroll themselves in regiments to go to the frontier. In the Colosseum their names were received. Father Gavazzi, a truly patriotic monk, gave them the cross to carry on a new, a better, because defensive, crusade. Sterbini, long exiled, addressed them. He said: “Romans, do you wish to go; do you wish to go with all your hearts? If so, you may, and those who do not wish to go themselves may give money. To those who will go, the government gives bread and fifteen baiocchi a day.” The people cried: “We wish to go, but we do not wish so much; the government is very poor; we can live on a paul a day.” The princes answered by giving, one sixty thousand, others twenty, fifteen, ten thousand dollars. The people responded by giving at the benches which are opened in the piazzas literally everything; street-pedlers gave the gains of each day; women gave every ornament, — from the splendid necklace and bracelet down to the poorest bit of coral; servant-girls gave five pauls, two pauls, even half a paul, if they had no more. A man all in rags gave two pauls. “It is,” said he, “all I have.” “Then,” said Torlonia, “take from me this dollar.” The man of rags thanked him warmly, and handed that also to the bench, which refused to receive it. “No! that must stay with you,” shouted all present. These are the people whom the traveller accuses of being unable to rise above selfish considerations; — a nation rich and glorious by nature, capable, like all nations, all men, of being degraded by slavery, capable, as are few nations, few men, of kindling into pure flame at the touch of a ray from the Sun of Truth, of Life. The two or three days that followed, the troops were marching about by detachments, followed always by the people, to the Ponte Molle, often farther. The women wept; for the habits of the Romans are so domestic, that it seemed a great thing to have their sons and lovers gone even for a few months. The English — or at least those of the illiberal, bristling nature too often met here, which casts out its porcupine quills against HDT WHAT? INDEX
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everything like enthusiasm (of the more generous Saxon blood I know some noble examples) — laughed at all this. They have said that this people would not fight; when the Sicilians, men and women, did so nobly, they said: “O, the Sicilians are quite unlike the Italians; you will see, when the struggle comes on in Lombardy, they cannot resist the Austrian force a moment.” I said: “That force is only physical; do not you think a sentiment can sustain them?” They replied: “All stuff and poetry; it will fade the moment their blood flows.” When the news came that the Milanese, men and women, fight as the Sicilians did, they said: “Well, the Lombards are a better race, but these Romans are good for nothing. It is a farce for a Roman to try to walk even; they never walk a mile; they will not be able to support the first day’s march of thirty miles, and not have their usual minéstra to eat either.” Now the troops were not willing to wait for the government to make the necessary arrangements for their march, so at the first night’s station — Monterosi — they did not find food or bedding; yet the second night, at Civita Castellana, they were so well alive as to remain dancing and vivaing Pio Nono in the piazza till after midnight. No, Gentlemen, soul is not quite nothing, if matter be a clog upon its transports. The Americans show a better, warmer feeling than they did; the meeting in New York was of use in instructing the Americans abroad! The dinner given here on Washington’s birthday was marked by fine expressions of sentiment, and a display of talent unusual on such occasions. There was a poem from Mr. Story of Boston, which gave great pleasure; a speech by Mr. Hillard, said to be very good, and one by Rev. Mr. Hedge of Bangor, exceedingly admired for the felicity of thought and image, and the finished beauty of style. Next week we shall have more news, and I shall try to write and mention also some interesting things want of time obliges me to omit in this letter. ARTHUR FULLER’S BOOK
July-November: Henry Thoreau and Ellery Channing went on a 4-day walking tour through southern New Hampshire: Mount Uncanninuc, Goffstown, Hooksett, Hampsted, Plaistow (new materials for A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS). During this trip Thoreau encountered his original “desperate man”: the hikers had just encountered an Italian organ grinder far from Rome and then along came a fellow so desperate for a job as to be perplexing.54
54. We will discover, however, that although this man perplexed Thoreau and was the First Cause of his writing some lines, our author would do nothing in particular with these writings until after he had had some other encounters with some other desperate types, perhaps yet more desperate and yet more dangerous and yet more perplexing, and had decided that that condition was in desperate need of being spoken to. In other words, the governing consideration here will be offered to have been (playing around with Aristotelian terminology for purposes of making my point) not the First Cause, but the Effective Cause. Not to put too sharp an edge on this, I will be offering that the occasion for this script written in the summer of 1848 eventually seeing print as it did in WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS (rather than being relegated to the cutting-room floor) was not this guy in the mountains who desperately needed a job, but: Thoreau’s presence on the lecture platform during the burning of the US Constitution, on a pewter dish, by William Lloyd Garrison. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1849
Work at the open vein of limonite iron ore in the side of the mountain at Franconia Notch had progressed to the point at which the mountain had a vertical slice cut out of it that was 144 feet deep, 660 feet long, and about 4 feet wide.
July 26, Thursday: William Rockefeller, father of John D., was indicted in Auburn for the rape of Anne Vanderbeck during the previous year while she was employed by him as a domestic.
A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS was anonymously reviewed on the 2d page of The New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette: This is a remarkable volume and its author is a remarkable man. The title is very unpretending and gives but a faint idea of the contents of the work. Few men think as much as they should. All is action; and if one is only busy about something, it is enough; no one can say contemptuously that he is idle — Now to us it seems that this fidgeting, itching, hustling turn of mind might frequently with profit be exchanged for a more meditative and thoughtful habit, which should enlarge the understanding and open the heart, develop the reason and chasten the passions. The author of the work before us, is a man of thought — retired from the busy scenes of life, he turns the mental eye inward and endeavors to read the mysterious page of his own soul. Again looking upon objects around which meet his senses, he reads lessons of wisdom. To him the very stones preach sermons and the reeds become eloquent. The thread of his narrative is very simple, but upon it he has strung pearls. With a single companion in his little boat, he courses leisurely down the Concord and up the Merrimack Rivers, some sixty miles or more and gives us the reflections and observations of each day. He discourses to us about the old inhabitants — describes the genius of fishes, — hears the “church-going bell” and talks about modern religion and its inconsistencies — seems strangely inclined to sympathise with the Ancient Greeks and Romans, with their myths and many Gods — utters deep-felt thoughts about conscience, its office and uses — touches his lyre and gives us a sweet poem — discourses of the old Poets and with them glories over our relics and antiquities, and cares more for them than for those of Egypt — moralizes on Friendship, and in fine, gives utterance to a thousand beautiful thoughts upon the material and immaterial earth, air and heaven, until on closing the book we find ourselves in love with the author, satisfied with ourselves and at peace with the world. We do not by any means endorse the author’s Pantheism, but will let it stand or fall for itself. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1850
D.G. Lamont painted “Count Rumford’s Farewell,” a work that we can now view in a different mode from the mode in which it was painted (in the rear of this New Hampshire painting is Dinah, the family’s slave).
The negrero Martha, of New-York, was captured while about to embark 1,800 slaves. The captain would be allowed to make bail, and would therefore be able to escape punishment for this capital crime of piracy (A.H. Foote, AFRICA AND THE AMERICAN FLAG, pages 285-92).
The negrero Lucy Ann, of Boston, was captured by the British navy while carrying 547 slaves (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31st Congress, 1st session XIV Number 66, pages 1-10 ff).
The American negrero Navarre, trading to Brazil, was searched and then seized by a British cruiser (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31st Congress, 1st session XIV Number 66, pages 1-10 ff).
It was in about this year that the American negreros Louisa Beaton, Pilot, Chatsworth, Meteor, R. de Zaldo, Chester, etc. were boarded and searched by British patrol vessels (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31st Congress, 1st session XIV Number 66, passim). INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: A somewhat more sincere and determined HDT WHAT? INDEX
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effort to enforce the slave-trade laws now followed; and yet it is a significant fact that not until Lincoln’s administration did a slave-trader suffer death for violating the laws of the United States. The participation of Americans in the trade continued, declining somewhat between 1825 and 1830, and then reviving, until it reached its highest activity between 1840 and 1860. The development of a vast internal slave-trade, and the consequent rise in the South of vested interests strongly opposed to slave smuggling, led to a falling off in the illicit introduction of Negroes after 1825, until the fifties; nevertheless, smuggling never entirely ceased, and large numbers were thus added to the plantations of the Gulf States. Monroe had various constitutional scruples as to the execution of the Act of 1819;55 but, as Congress took no action, he at last put a fair interpretation on his powers, and appointed Samuel Bacon as an agent in Africa to form a settlement for recaptured Africans. Gradually the agency thus formed became merged with that of the Colonization Society on Cape Mesurado; and from this union Liberia was finally evolved.56 Meantime, during the years 1818 to 1820, the activity of the slave-traders was prodigious. General James Tallmadge declared in the House, February 15, 1819: “Our laws are already highly penal against their introduction, and yet, it is a well known fact, that about fourteen thousand slaves have been brought into our country this last year.”57 In the same year Middleton of South Carolina and Wright of Virginia estimated illicit introduction at 13,000 and 15,000 respectively.58 Judge Story, in charging a jury, took occasion to say: “We have but too many proofs from unquestionable sources, that it [the slave-trade] is still carried on with all the implacable rapacity of former times. Avarice has grown more subtle in its evasions, and watches and seizes its prey with an appetite quickened rather than suppressed by its guilty vigils. American citizens are steeped to their very mouths (I can hardly use too bold a figure) in this stream of iniquity.”59 The following year, 1820, brought some significant statements from various members of Congress. Said Smith of South Carolina: “Pharaoh was, for his temerity, drowned in the Red Sea, in pursuing them [the Israelites] contrary to God’s express will; but our Northern friends have not been afraid even of that, in their zeal to furnish the Southern States with Africans. They are better seamen than Pharaoh, and calculate by that means to elude the vigilance of Heaven; which they seem to disregard, if they can but elude the violated laws of their country.”60 As late as May he saw little
55. Attorney-General Wirt advised him, October, 1819, that no part of the appropriation could be used to purchase land in Africa or tools for the Negroes, or as salary for the agent: OPINIONS OF ATTORNEYS-GENERAL, I. 314-7. Monroe laid the case before Congress in a special message Dec. 20, 1819 (HOUSE JOURNAL, 16th Congress 1st session, page 57); but no action was taken there. 56. Cf. Kendall’s Report, August, 1830: SENATE DOCUMENT, 21st Congress 2d session, I. No. 1, pages 211-8; also see below, Chapter X. 57. Speech in the House of Representatives, Feb. 15, 1819, page 18; published in Boston, 1849. 58. Jay, INQUIRY INTO AMERICAN COLONIZATION (1838), page 59, note. 59. Quoted in Friends’ FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE SLAVE TRADE (ed. 1841), pages 7-8. 60. ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 16th Congress 1st session, pages 270-1. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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hope of suppressing the traffic.61 Sergeant of Pennsylvania declared: “It is notorious that, in spite of the utmost vigilance that can be employed, African negroes are clandestinely brought in and sold as slaves.”62 Plumer of New Hampshire stated that “of the unhappy beings, thus in violation of all laws transported to our shores, and thrown by force into the mass of our black population, scarcely one in a hundred is ever detected by the officers of the General Government, in a part of the country, where, if we are to believe the statement of Governor Rabun, ‘an officer who would perform his duty, by attempting to enforce the law [against the slave trade] is, by many, considered as an officious meddler, and treated with derision and contempt;’ ... I have been told by a gentleman, who has attended particularly to this subject, that ten thousand slaves were in one year smuggled into the United States; and that, even for the last year, we must count the number not by hundreds, but by thousands.”63 In 1821 a committee of Congress characterized prevailing methods as those “of the grossest fraud that could be practised to deceive the officers of government.”64 Another committee, in 1822, after a careful examination of the subject, declare that they “find it impossible to measure with precision the effect produced upon the American branch of the slave trade by the laws above mentioned, and the seizures under them. They are unable to state, whether those American merchants, the American capital and seamen which heretofore aided in this traffic, have abandoned it altogether, or have sought shelter under the flags of other nations.” They then state the suspicious circumstance that, with the disappearance of the American flag from the traffic, “the trade, notwithstanding, increases annually, under the flags of other nations.” They complain of the spasmodic efforts of the executive. They say that the first United States cruiser arrived on the African coast in March, 1820, and remained a “few weeks;” that since then four others had in two years made five visits in all; but “since the middle of last November, the commencement of the healthy season on that coast, no vessel has been, nor, as your committee is informed, is, under orders for that service.”65 The United States African agent, Ayres, reported in 1823: “I was informed by an American officer who had been on the coast in 1820, that he had boarded 20 American vessels in one morning, lying in the port of Gallinas, and fitted for the reception of slaves. It is a lamentable fact, that most of the harbours, between the Senegal and the line, were visited by an equal number of American vessels, and for the sole purpose of carrying away slaves. Although for some years the coast had been
61. ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 16th Congress 1st session, page 698. 62. ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 16th Congress 1st session, page 1207. 63. ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 16th Congress 1st session, page 1433. 64. Referring particularly to the case of the slaver “Plattsburg.” Cf. HOUSE REPORTS, 17th Congress 1st session, II. No. 92, page 10. 65. HOUSE REPORTS, 17th Congress 1st session, II. No. 92, page 2. The President had in his message spoken in exhilarating tones of the success of the government in suppressing the trade. The House Committee appointed in pursuance of this passage made the above report. Their conclusions are confirmed by British reports: PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, 1822, Vol. XXII., SLAVE TRADE, Further Papers, III. page 44. So, too, in 1823, Ashmun, the African agent, reports that thousands of slaves are being abducted. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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occasionally visited by our cruizers, their short stay and seldom appearance had made but slight impression on those traders, rendered hardy by repetition of crime, and avaricious by excessive gain. They were enabled by a regular system to gain intelligence of any cruizer being on the coast.”66 Even such spasmodic efforts bore abundant fruit, and indicated what vigorous measures might have accomplished. Between May, 1818, and November, 1821, nearly six hundred Africans were recaptured and eleven American slavers taken.67 Such measures gradually changed the character of the trade, and opened the international phase of the question. American slavers cleared for foreign ports, there took a foreign flag and papers, and then sailed boldly past American cruisers, although their real character was often well known. More stringent clearance laws and consular instructions might have greatly reduced this practice; but nothing was ever done, and gradually the laws became in large measure powerless to deal with the bulk of the illicit trade. In 1820, September 16, a British officer, in his official report, declares that, in spite of United States laws, “American vessels, American subjects, and American capital, are unquestionably engaged in the trade, though under other colours and in disguise.”68 The United States ship “Cyane” at one time reported ten captures within a few days, adding: “Although they are evidently owned by Americans, they are so completely covered by Spanish papers that it is impossible to condemn them.”69 The governor of Sierra Leone reported the rivers Nunez and Pongas full of renegade European and American slave-traders;70 the trade was said to be carried on “to an extent that almost staggers belief.”71 Down to 1824 or 1825, reports from all quarters prove this activity in slave-trading. The execution of the laws within the country exhibits grave defects and even criminal negligence. Attorney-General Wirt finds it necessary to assure collectors, in 1819, that “it is against public policy to dispense with prosecutions for violation of the law to prohibit the Slave trade.”72 One district attorney writes: “It appears to be almost impossible to enforce the laws of the United States against offenders after the negroes have been landed in the state.”73 Again, it is asserted that “when vessels engaged in the slave trade have been detained by the American cruizers, and sent into the slave-holding states, there appears at once a difficulty in securing the 66. Ayres to the Secretary of the Navy, Feb. 24, 1823; reprinted in FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), page 31. 67. HOUSE REPORTS, 17th Congress 1st session, II. No. 92, pages 5-6. The slavers were the “Ramirez,” “Endymion,” “Esperanza,” “Plattsburg,” “Science,” “Alexander,” “Eugene,” “Mathilde,” “Daphne,” “Eliza,” and “La Pensée.” In these 573 Africans were taken. The naval officers were greatly handicapped by the size of the ships, etc. (cf. FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), pages 33-41). They nevertheless acted with great zeal. 68. PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, 1821, Vol. XXIII., SLAVE TRADE, Further Papers, A, page 76. The names and description of a dozen or more American slavers are given: PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, 1821, Vol. XXIII., SLAVE TRADE, Further Papers, A, pages 18-21. 69. HOUSE REPORTS, 17th Congress 1st session, II. No. 92, pages 15-20. 70. HOUSE DOCUMENT, 18th Congress 1st session, VI. No. 119, page 13. 71. PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, 1823, Vol. XVIII., SLAVE TRADE, Further Papers, A, pages 10-11. 72. OPINIONS OF ATTORNEYS-GENERAL, V. 717. 73. R.W. Habersham to the Secretary of the Navy, August, 1821; reprinted in FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), page 47. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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freedom to these captives which the laws of the United States have decreed for them.”74 In some cases, one man would smuggle in the Africans and hide them in the woods; then his partner would “rob” him, and so all trace be lost.75 Perhaps 350 Africans were officially reported as brought in contrary to law from 1818 to 1820: the absurdity of this figure is apparent.76 A circular letter to the marshals, in 1821, brought reports of only a few well-known cases, like that of the “General Ramirez;” the marshal of Louisiana had “no information.”77 There appears to be little positive evidence of a large illicit importation into the country for a decade after 1825. It is hardly possible, however, considering the activity in the trade, that slaves were not largely imported. Indeed, when we note how the laws were continually broken in other respects, absence of evidence of petty smuggling becomes presumptive evidence that collusive or tacit understanding of officers and citizens allowed the trade to some extent.78 Finally, it must be noted that during all this time scarcely a man suffered for participating in the trade, beyond the loss of the Africans and, more rarely, of his ship. Red-handed slavers, caught in the act and convicted, were too often, like La Coste of South Carolina, the subjects of executive clemency.79 In certain cases there were those who even had the effrontery to ask Congress to cancel their own laws. For instance, in 1819 a Venezuelan privateer, secretly fitted out and manned by Americans in Baltimore, succeeded in capturing several American, Portuguese, and Spanish slavers, and appropriating the slaves; being finally wrecked herself, she transferred her crew and slaves to one of her prizes, the “Antelope,” which was eventually captured by a United States cruiser and the 280 Africans sent to Georgia. After much litigation, the United States Supreme Court ordered those captured from Spaniards to be surrendered, and the others to be returned to Africa. By some mysterious process, only 139 Africans now remained, 100 of whom were sent to Africa. The Spanish claimants of the remaining thirty-nine sold them to a certain Mr. Wilde, who gave bond to transport them out of the country. Finally, in December, 1827, there came an innocent petition to Congress to cancel this bond.80 A bill to that effect passed and was approved, May 2, 1828,81 and in consequence these Africans remained as slaves in Georgia. On the whole, it is plain that, although in the period from 1807 to 1820 Congress laid down broad lines of legislation sufficient, save in some details, to suppress the African slave trade to America, yet the execution of these laws was criminally lax. Moreover, by the facility with which slavers could disguise their identity, it was possible for them to escape even a vigorous enforcement of our laws. This situation could properly 74. FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), page 42. 75. FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), page 43. 76. Cf. above, pages 126-7. 77. FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), page 42. 78. A few accounts of captures here and there would make the matter less suspicious; these, however, do not occur. How large this suspected illicit traffic was, it is of course impossible to say; there is no reason why it may not have reached many hundreds per year. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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be met only by energetic and sincere international co- operation....82 W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: The long and open agitation for the reopening of the slave-trade, together with the fact that the South had been more or less familiar with violations of the laws since 1808, led to such a remarkable increase of illicit traffic and actual importations in the decade 1850-1860, that the movement may almost be termed a reopening of the slave-trade. In the foreign slave-trade our own officers continue to report “how shamefully our flag has been used;”83 and British officers write “that at least one half of the successful part of the slave trade is carried on under the American flag,” and this because “the number of American cruisers on the station is so small, in proportion to the immense extent of the slave-dealing coast.”84 The fitting out of slavers became a flourishing business in the United States, and centred at New York City. “Few of our readers,” writes a periodical of the day, “are aware of the extent to which this infernal traffic is carried on, by vessels clearing from New York, and in close alliance with our legitimate trade; and that down-town merchants of wealth and respectability are extensively engaged in buying and selling African Negroes, and have been, with comparatively little interruption, for an indefinite number of years.”85 Another periodical says: “The number of persons engaged in the slave- trade, and the amount of capital embarked in it, exceed our powers of calculation. The city of New York has been until of late [1862] the principal port of the world for this infamous 79. Cf. editorial in Niles’s Register, XXII. 114. Cf. also the following instances of pardons: — PRESIDENT JEFFERSON: March 1, 1808, Phillip M. Topham, convicted for “carrying on an illegal slave-trade” (pardoned twice). PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, I. 146, 148-9. PRESIDENT MADISON: July 29, 1809, fifteen vessels arrived at New Orleans from Cuba, with 666 white persons and 683 negroes. Every penalty incurred under the Act of 1807 was remitted. (Note: “Several other pardons of this nature were granted.”) PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, I. 179. November 8, 1809, John Hopkins and Lewis Le Roy, convicted for importing a slave. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, I. 184-5. February 12, 1810, William Sewall, convicted for importing slaves. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, I. 194, 235, 240. May 5, 1812, William Babbit, convicted for importing slaves. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, I. 248. PRESIDENT MONROE: June 11, 1822, Thomas Shields, convicted for bringing slaves into New Orleans. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 15. August 24, 1822, J.F. Smith, sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and $3000 fine; served twenty-five months and was then pardoned. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 22. July 23, 1823, certain parties liable to penalties for introducing slaves into Alabama. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 63. August 15, 1823, owners of schooner “Mary,” convicted of importing slaves. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 66. PRESIDENT J.Q. ADAMS: March 4, 1826, Robert Perry; his ship was forfeited for slave-trading. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 140. January 17, 1827, Jesse Perry; forfeited ship, and was convicted for introducing slaves. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 158. February 13, 1827, Zenas Winston; incurred penalties for slave-trading. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 161. The four following cases are similar to that of Winston: — February 24, 1827, John Tucker and William Morbon. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 162. March 25, 1828, Joseph Badger. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 192. February 19, 1829, L.R. Wallace. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 215. PRESIDENT JACKSON: Five cases. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 225, 270, 301, 393, 440. The above cases were taken from manuscript copies of the Washington records, made by Mr. W.C. Endicott, Jr., and kindly loaned me. 80. See SENATE JOURNAL, 20th Congress 1st session, pages 60, 66, 340, 341, 343, 348, 352, 355; HOUSE JOURNAL, 20th Congress 1st session, pages 59, 76, 123, 134, 156, 169, 173, 279, 634, 641, 646, 647, 688, 692. 81. STATUTES AT LARGE, VI. 376. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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commerce; although the cities of Portland and Boston are only second to her in that distinction. Slave dealers added largely to the wealth of our commercial metropolis; they contributed liberally to the treasuries of political organizations, and their bank accounts were largely depleted to carry elections in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.”86 During eighteen months of the years 1859-1860 eighty-five slavers are reported to have been fitted out in New York harbor,87 and these alone transported from 30,000 to 60,000 slaves annually.88 The United States deputy marshal of that district declared in 1856 that the business of fitting out slavers “was never prosecuted with greater energy than at present. The occasional interposition of the legal authorities exercises no apparent influence for its suppression. It is seldom that one or more vessels cannot be designated at the wharves, respecting which there is evidence that she is either in or has been concerned in the Traffic.”89 On the coast of Africa “it is a well-known fact that most of the Slave ships which visit the river are sent from New York and New Orleans.”90 The absence of United States war-ships at the Brazilian station enabled American smugglers to run in cargoes, in spite of the prohibitory law. One cargo of five hundred slaves was landed in 1852, and the Correio Mercantil regrets “that it was the flag of the United States which covered this act of piracy, sustained by citizens of that great nation.”91 When the Brazil trade declined, the illicit Cuban trade greatly increased, and the British consul reported: “Almost all the slave expeditions for some time past have been fitted out in the United States, chiefly at New York.”92
82. Among interesting minor proceedings in this period were two Senate bills to register slaves so as to prevent illegal importation. They were both dropped in the House; a House proposition to the same effect also came to nothing: SENATE JOURNAL, 15th Congress 1st session, pages 147, 152, 157, 165, 170, 188, 201, 203, 232, 237; 15th Congress 2d session, pages 63, 74, 77, 202, 207, 285, 291, 297; HOUSE JOURNAL, 15th Congress 1st session, page 332; 15th Congress 2d session, pages 303, 305, 316; 16th Congress 1st session, page 150. Another proposition was contained in the Meigs resolution presented to the House, Feb. 5, 1820, which proposed to devote the public lands to the suppression of the slave-trade. This was ruled out of order. It was presented again and laid on the table in 1821: HOUSE JOURNAL, 16th Congress 1st session, pages 196, 200, 227; 16th Congress 2d session, page 238. 83. Gregory to the Secretary of the Navy, June 8, 1850: SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31 Congress, 1st session, XIV. No. 66, page 2. Cf. SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31 Congress, 2d session, II. No. 6. 84. Cumming to Commodore Fanshawe, Feb. 22, 1850: SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31 Congress, 1st session, XIV. No. 66, page 8. 85. New York Journal of Commerce, 1857; quoted in 24TH REPORT OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, page 56. 86. “The Slave-Trade in New York,” in the Continental Monthly, January, 1862, page 87. 87. New York Evening Post; quoted in Lalor, CYCLOPÆDIA, III. 733. 88. Lalor, CYCLOPÆDIA, III. 733; quoted from a New York paper. 89. FRIENDS’ APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE COLOURED RACES (1858), Appendix, page 41; quoted from the Journal of Commerce. 90. 26TH REPORT OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, pages 53-4; quoted from the African correspondent of the Boston Journal. From April, 1857, to May, 1858, twenty-one of twenty-two slavers which were seized by British cruisers proved to be American, from New York, Boston, and New Orleans. Cf. 25TH REPORT OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, page 122. De Bow estimated in 1856 that forty slavers cleared annually from Eastern harbors, clearing yearly $17,000,000: De Bow’s Review, XXII. 430-1. 91. SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 33d Congress, 1st session, VIII. No. 47, page 13. 92. HOUSE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 34th Congress, 1st session, XII. No. 105, page 38. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1852
August 18, Wednesday: On about this date, having apparently learned that the sculptor Horatio Greenough, who had had the temerity to attack him, had been institutionalized and was dying of some sort of brain problem in Somerville, Massachusetts (site of McLean’s Asylum), Waldo Emerson confided to his JOURNAL with evident satisfaction that:
Greenough called my contemplations, &c. “the masturbation of the brain.”
(Well, Waldo, he who laughs last, laughs best, right?) MASTURBATION
August 18: 3 Pm To Joe Clarks & Hibiscus bank. I cannot conceive how a man can accomplish any thing worthy of him – unless his very breath is sweet to him. He must be particularly alive. As if a man were himself & could work well only at a certain rare crisis. The river is full of weeds The hypericum mutilum small flowered has in some places turned wholly red on the shore. There is indeed some thing royal about the month of august. It is a more ingrained & perhaps more tropical GOD IN CONCORD by Jane Langton © 1992 Penguin Books USA Inc. 50 There is indeed something royal about the month of August. Journal, August 18, 1852 Viking Penguin
Roger Bland’s campaign letter was ready, but Jo-Jo Field knew better than to send it out. Too many Concord people ISBN 0-670-84260-5 — PS3562.A515G58 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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heat than that of July. Though hot it is not so suffocating & unveiled a blaze – the vapors in the air temper it somewhat– But we have had some pretty cool weather with a week or two–& the evenings generally are cooler. As I go over the hill behind Hunt’s The N river has a glassy stillness & smoothness – seen through the smoky haze that fills the air – and has the effect of a film on the water– So that it looks stagnant. No mts can be seen. The locust is heard –the fruits are ripening –ripe apples here & there scent the air. Huckleberries probably have begun to spoil. I see those minute yellow coccoons on the grass. Hazel nuts methinks it is time to gather them if you would anticipate the squirrels. The clematis & mikania belong to this month – filling the crevices and rounding the outline of leafy banks & hedges. Perceived today & some weeks since Aug 3d the strong invigorating aroma of green walnuts – astringent & bracing to the spirits the fancy & imagination – suggesting a tree that has its roots well in amid the bowels of nature. Their shells are in fact & from associating exhilirating to smell – suggesting a strong nutty native vigor. A fruit which I am glad that our zone produces – looking like the nutmeg of the east. I acquire some of the hardness & elasticity of the hickory when I smell them. They are among our spices.– High scented aromatic as you bruise one against another in your hand almost like nutmegs – only more bracing – & northern – fragrant stones which the trees bear. The hibiscus flowers are seen 1/4 of a mile off over the water –l ike large roses – now that these high colors are rather rare. Some are exceedingly delicate & pale almost white, just rose tinted – others a brighter pink or rose color – and all slightly plaited (the 5 large petals–) & turned toward the sun now in the west trembling in the wind. so much color looks very rich in these localities The flowers are some 4 inches in diameter as large as water lilies – rising amid & above the button bushes & willows – with a large light-green tree-like leaf – and a stem 1/2 inch in diameter, ap. dying down to a perennial ? root each year. A superb –flower –where it occurs it is, certainly next to the white lily–, if not equally with it, the most splendid ornament of the river. Looking up the gleaming river reflecting the august sun– The round topped silvery white maples, the glossy leaved swamp white oaks, the etherial and buoyant salix purshiana – the first and last resting on the water & giving the river a full appearance–& the hibiscus flowers adorning the shores – contrasting with the green across the river – close to the water’s edge – the meadows being just shorne – all make a perfect august scene. Here is the place where the hayers cross the river with their loads. as I made excursions on the river when the white lilies were in bloom so now I should make a hibiscus excursion– Rudbeckia laciniata Sunflower like Tall Cone-flower behind Joe Clark’s Symphytum officinale common comfrey by Dakin pumpmaker’s. The cerastium viscosum which I saw months ago still. And the ovate heads of the tall anemone gone to seed. Linum usitatissimum common flax with a pretty large & pretty blue flower in the yard. Rumex obtusifolius – for weeks ap. Elizabeth Hoar shows me the following plants which she brought from the Wht Mts the 16th ult. Chiogenes hispidula? creeping snow-berry also called Gaultheria & also vaccinium hispidula – in fruit. –with a partridge berry scent & taste. Taxus Canadensis Ground hemlock with red cup shaped berries very handsome & remarkably like wax or red marble. Platanthera orbiculata remarkable for its watery shining leaves flat on the ground while its spike of flowers rises perpendicular – suggesting as she said repose & steadiness amid the prostrate trunks–& you could not avoid seeing it any more than a child in blossom. Oxalis acetosella in blossom Arenaria Groenlandica also in bloom in tufts like houstonia. Lonicera ciliata probably with a double red fruit. She also brought Lichens & mosses & convallaria berries which she gathered at the flume in Franconia – the latter red ripe hanging from the axils of the leaves – affected me – reminding me of the progress of autumn in the north – & the other two were a very fit importation still dripping with the moisture the water of the flume. It carries you indeed into the primitive wood. To think how in those wild woods now hang these wild berries in grim solitude as of yore – already scenting their autumn– A thousand years ago this convallaria growing there – its berries turning red as now & its leaves acquiring an autumnal tint. Lichens & mosses enough to cover a waiter still dripping with the watter of the flume – is not that a true specimen of it? J Stacy says that 50 years ago his father used to blow his fire with onion stems– Thinks there have been great improvements. But then as I hear there was a bellows maker in the town. Is not that the aster umbellatus which I found by the lygodium? ELIZABETH SHERMAN HOAR HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1853
June: A coastal vessel again stopped by San Nicolàs Island off the coast of Alta California, at the request of the padre of Mission San Juan Capistrano on the mainland, to look for the native American isolate known as the “Lone Woman” left over from a massacre of the 1820s by the Inuit crew of a Russian whaling vessel. This time they found her and brought her to the mainland. Evidently, however, her three decades of isolation from all human contact had removed her immune defenses, for she would die within seven weeks.
In this year or the next Henry Thoreau was adding into Draft F of his WALDEN ms a comment about the “Symmes’ hole” in the earth, a comment quite as humorous as the comment he had made about it in a student paper while in college but also this time a comment with a point to it, a point which would never have been anticipated by the imaginative Captain John Cleves Symmes:
WALDEN: It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar. Yet do this even till you can do better, CAT and you may perhaps find some “Symmes’ Hole” by which to get at the inside at last. England and France, Spain and Portugal, Gold Coast and Slave Coast, all front on this private sea; but no bark from them has ventured out of sight of land, though it is without doubt the direct way to India. If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travellers, be naturalized in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve. Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist. Start now on that farthest western way, which does not pause at the Mississippi or the Pacific, nor conduct toward a worn-out China or Japan, but leads on direct a tangent to this sphere, summer and winter, day and night, sun down, moon down, and at last earth down too.
SYMMES HOLE “THE OLD PHILOSOPHER” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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WALDEN: Yet we should[the full oftenerWalden quotelook isover on thethe following tafferel screen] of our craft, like curious PEOPLE OF passengers, and not make the voyage like stupid sailors picking oakum. The other side of the globe is but the home of our correspondent. Our voyaging is only WALDEN great-circle sailing, and the doctors prescribe for diseases of the skin merely. One hastens to Southern Africa to chase the giraffe; but surely that is not the game he would be after. How long, pray, would a man hunt giraffes if he could? Snipes and woodcocks also may afford rare sort; but I trust it would be nobler game to shoot one’s self.– “Direct your eye sight inward, and you’ll find A thousand regions in your mind Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be Expert in home-cosmography.” What does Africa, –what does the West stand for? Is not our own interior white on the chart? black though it may prove, like the coast, when discovered. Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the Mississippi, or a North-West Passage around this continent, that we would find? Are these the problems which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewis and Clarke and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans; explore your own higher latitudes, –with shiploads of preserved meats to support you, if they be necessary; and pile the empty cans sky-high for a sign. Were preserved meats invented to preserve meat merely? Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice. Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads. What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact, that there are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone.– “Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos. Plus habet hic vitæ, plus habet ille viæ.” Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians. I have more of God, they more of the road. It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar. Yet do this even till you can do better, and you may perhaps find some “Symmes’ Hole” by which to get at the inside at last. England and France, Spain and Portugal, Gold Coast and Slave Coast, all front on this private sea; but no bark from them has ventured out of sight of land, though it is without doubt the direct way to India. If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travellers, be naturalized in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve. Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist. Start now on that farthest western way, which does not pause at the Mississippi or the Pacific, nor conduct toward a worn-out China or Japan, but leads on direct a tangent to this sphere, summer and winter, day and night, sun down, moon down, and at last earth down too.
LEWIS AND CLARK SYMMES HOLE HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
Frederick Edwin Church painted “Mount Ktaadn” for the railroad and steamboat magnate Marshall O. Roberts, who had made an obscene amount of money buying and selling land on the basis of inside information about the location of new transportation routes and who was obsessed with America’s manifest destiny of infinite expansive boosterism:
That last San Nicoleño, “Lone Woman” who was being brought to the mainland of California from that Channel Island just off the coast in June of this year, would become, eventually, allegedly, the inspiration for 93 the pleasant romance ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS. HERMITS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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93. In the 1950s this offshore landmass, San Nicolàs Island, would serve as a site for top secret Cold War tracking of Soviet nuclear submarines, and would be most decidedly off limits to any romantic tourists. Nowadays those leftover war facilities are being used to track biologicals — which is to say, whales. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1854
September 30, Saturday: Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion presented an image of Concord, New Hampshire:
CONSULT THE WIKIPEDIA
In the afternoon Henry Thoreau went on the Assabet River to the monarda road.
Review of WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS under the heading “New Books” in the Harrisburg PA Morning HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Herald, 2:1.
“A Yankee Diogenes”—a review of Thoreau’s “Walden” [in the October Putnam’s]—comes up to our idea of that eccentric work.
Review of “Walden; or, Life in the Woods” in the New York Christian Inquirer, 2:6.
WALDEN Print H A gentleman who lives five [sic] years all alone by himself, by the side of a pond in the woods, in a house costing $28.12, and whose yearly expenses for food, raiment, and luxuries, amount to $19.44, and who thinks that is the best way of living, will hardly persuade his readers that he is free from all extravagance. If any one, however, thinks “this is some crazy man,” he will find himself much mistaken if he reads his book. The great value of the work consists in the nice observation of nature which it shows. Its author has a rare gift not only of observing, but of describing all he saw and heard in the woods. He is also a scholar and a great admirer of the Greek and Latin classics. He keeps up his college studies, loves books, music, and pictures, though he lives in a shanty. Whatever may be thought of his oddities, no one can deny that he has written a work full of suggestion, and having here and there considerable wisdom. Almost every page is marked by a quaint humor which few can resist, and the style throughout is singularly nervous and racy.
From England, Nathaniel Hawthorne had written to Ticknor & Fields asking for some “good,” “original” books “with American characteristics” to show to Monckton Milnes. Ticknor & Fields responded by sending WALDEN; OR,LIFE IN THE WOODS and A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, and three other books. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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There was a treaty with the Chippewa: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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ARTICLE 4. In consideration of and payment for the country hereby ceded, the United States agree to pay to the Chippewas of Lake Superior, annually, for the term of twenty years, the following sums, to wit: five thousand dollars in coin; eight thousand dollars in goods, household furniture and cooking utensils; three thousand dollars in agricultural implements and cattle, carpenter’s and other tools and building materials, and three thousand dollars for moral and educational purposes, of which last sum, three hundred dollars per annum shall be paid to the Grand Portage band, to enable them to maintain a school at their village. The United States will also pay the further sum of ninety thousand dollars, as the chiefs in open council may direct, to enable them to meet their present just engagements. Also the further sum of six thousand dollars, in agricultural implements, household furniture, and cooking utensils, to be distributed at the next annuity payment, among the mixed bloods of said nation. The United States will also furnish two hundred guns, one hundred rifles, five hundred beaver traps, three hundred dollars’ worth of ammunition, and one thousand dollars’ worth of ready made clothing, to be distributed among the young men of the nation, at the next annuity payment. ARTICLE 5. The United States will also furnish a blacksmith and assistant, with the usual amount of stock, during the continuance of the annuity payments, and as much longer as the President may think proper, at each of the points herein set apart for the residence of the Indians, the same to be in lieu of all the employees to which the Chippewas of Lake Superior may be entitled under previous existing treaties. ARTICLE 6. The annuities of the Indians shall not be taken to pay the debts of individuals, but satisfaction for depredations committed by them shall be made by them in such manner as the President may direct. ARTICLE 7. No spirituous liquors shall be made, sold, or used on any of the lands herein set apart for the residence of the Indians, and the sale of the same shall be prohibited in the Territory hereby ceded, until otherwise ordered by the President. ARTICLE 8. It is agreed, between the Chippewas of Lake Superior and the Chippewas of the Mississippi, that the former shall be entitled to two-thirds, and the latter to one-third, of all benefits to be derived from former treaties existing prior to the year 1847. ARTICLE 9. The United States agrees that an examination shall be made, and all sums that may be found equitably due to the Indians, for arrearages of annuity or other thing, under the provisions of former treaties, shall be paid as the chiefs may direct. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
Articles of a treaty made and concluded at La Pointe, in the State of Wisconsin, between Henry C. Gilbert and David B. Herriman, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the Chippewa Indians of Lake Superior and the Mississippi, by their chiefs and headmen. ARTICLE 1. The Chippewas of Lake Superior hereby cede to the United States all the lands heretofore owned by them in common with the Chippewas of the Mississippi, lying east of the following boundary line, to wit: Beginning at a point, where the east branch of Snake River crosses the southern boundary line of the Chippewa country, running thence up the said branch to its source, thence nearly north, in a straight line, to the mouth of East Savannah River, thence up the St. Louis River to the mouth of East Swan River, thence up the East swan River to its source, thence in a straight line to the most westerly bend of Vermillion River, and thence down the Vermillion River to its mouth. The Chippewas of the Mississippi hereby assent and agree to the foregoing cession and consent that the whole amount of the consideration money for the country ceded above, shall be paid to the Chippewas of Lake Superior, and in consideration thereof the Chippewas of Lake Superior hereby relinquish to the Chippewas of the Mississippi, all their interest in and claim to the lands heretofore owned by them in common, lying west of the above boundary-line. ARTICLE 2. [Designation of boundary lines] ARTICLE 3. The United States will define the boundaries of the reserved tracts, whenever it may be necessary, by actual survey, and the President may, from time to time, at his discretion, cause the whole to be surveyed, and may assign to each head of a family or single person over twenty-one years of age, eighty acres of land for his or their separate use: and he may, at his discretion, as fast as the occupants become capable of transacting their own affairs, issue patents therefor to such occupants, with such restrictions of the power of alienation as he may see fit to impose. And he may also, at his discretion, make rules and regulations, respecting the disposition of the lands in case of the death of the head of a family, or single person occupying the same, or in case of its abandonment by them. And he may also assign other lands in exchange for mineral lands, if any such are found in the tracts herein set apart. And he may also make such changes in the boundaries of such reserved tracts or otherwise, as shall be necessary to prevent interference with any vested rights. All necessary roads, highways, and railroads, the lines of which may run through any of the reserved tracts, shall have the right of way through the same, compensation being made therefor as in other cases. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
ARTICLE 10. All missionaries, and teachers, and other persons of full age, residing in the territory hereby ceded, or upon any of the reservations hereby made by authority of law, shall be allowed to enter the land occupied by them at the minimum price whenever the surveys shall be completed to the amount of one quarter section each. ARTICLE 11. All annuity payments to the Chippewas of Lake Superior, shall hereafter be made at L’Anse, La Pointe, Grand Portage, and on the St. Louis River, and the Indians shall not be required to remove from the homes hereby set apart for them. And such of them as reside in the territory hereby ceded, shall have the right to hunt and fish therein, until otherwise ordered by the President. ARTICLE 12. In consideration of the poverty of the Bois Forte Indians who are parties to this treaty, they having never received any annuity payments, and of the great extent of that part of the ceded country owned exclusively by them, the following additional stipulations are made for their benefit. The United States will pay the sum of ten thousand dollars, as their chiefs in open council may direct, to enable them to meet their present just engagements. Also the further sum of ten thousand dollars, in five equal annual payments, in blankets, cloth, nets, guns, ammunition, and such other articles of necessity as they may require. They shall have the right to select their reservation at any time hereafter, under the direction of the President; and the same may be equal in extent, in proportion to their numbers, to those allowed the other bands, and be subject to the same provisions. They shall be allowed a blacksmith, and the usual smith shop supplies and also two persons to instruct them in farming, whenever in the opinion of the President it shall be proper, and for such length of time as he shall direct. It is understood that all Indians who are parties to this treaty, except the Chippewas of the Mississippi, shall hereafter be known as the Chippewas of Lake Superior. Provided, That the stipulation by which the Chippewas of Lake Superior relinquishing their right to land west of the boundary line shall not apply to the Bois Forte band who are parties to this treaty. ARTICLE 13. This treaty shall be obligatory on the contracting parties, as soon as the same shall be ratified by the President and Senate of the United States. In testimony whereof, the said Henry C. Gilbert, and the said David B. Herriman, commissioners as aforesaid, and the undersigned chiefs and headmen of the Chippewas of Lake Superior and the Mississippi, have hereunto set their hands and seals, at the place aforesaid, this thirtieth day of September, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four. Henry C. Gilbert, David B Herriman HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1855
Isaac-Farwell Holton served as a “stated supply” preacher at Meredith Village in New Hampshire.
In Boston, the firm of J. Wilson prepared THE HISTORY OF DUBLIN, N.H., CONTAINING THE ADDRESS BY CHARLES MASON, AND THE PROCEEDINGS AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, JUNE 17, 1852; WITH A REGISTER OF FAMILIES. (Sometime in 1860, Henry Thoreau would extract from this volume into his 2d Commonplace Book.) HISTORY OF DUBLIN NH
The 2d edition of former supreme-court justice John Edmonds’s influential treatise SPIRITUALISM.
A Society for the Diffusion of Spiritual Knowledge was established to sponsor a series of free public sittings at which Kate Fox would star. Her séances would gradually come to feature not only rappings but music, materializations, spirit writing, and other manifestations. SPIRITUALISM
In North Salem, New Hampshire, the burning of the home of Jonathan Pattee left behind on what is now termed “Mystery Hill” only some strange-looking piles of foundation stone, which are presently being visited by perhaps some 15,000 of the credulous per year. Were these piles of stone put in place for the foundation of that gutted 19th-Century home, or had they been piled there by some strange civilization, lost without any other trace, before that house had been erected upon them? Let your fancy be free.
At this point George Washington Briggs was a “general book agent, stationer and dealer in ... cosmetic products” dealing by preference in inspirational materials, religious works, general works of literature, and children’s books. He was offering for sale, for instance, a line of “Colored Picture Cards, with Games for Children of all ages.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
The USS Constitution was laid up at the US Navy Yard of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, until its reconditioning as a school ship would be completed in 1860.
The New Hampshire Iron Foundry in Franconia Notch was having trouble competing with blast furnaces that were closer to main transportation routes, and the labor force had shrunk from 50 to 30 men. Ten years later the blast furnace would begin to sit cold, a monolith beside the Gale River.
January 30, Tuesday: On approximately this date Henry Thoreau was being written to by Thomas Cholmondeley in England.
Hodnet Salop [Jan. 30
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a Captaincy in the Salop Militia, & it is probable that we shall be sent before very long to relieve other troops who are proceeding to the seat of the war: but if the strife continues to consume men at its present rate of 1000 a week we shall be involved
Page 2 in it I hope before the year is out by volunteering into the Line. Meanwhile I shall use my best diligence to learn all I can of my men &c & prepare myself for the active service to which I impatiently look forward. Nothing can be more awful than the position of our poor army. At the present rate of mortality they will be finished up by the time they are most wanted; & it will be reserved for the French to take Sabastopel. We are learning a tremendous lesson: I hope we shall profit by [it] & so far from receding I trust we
Page 3 shall continue hostilities with greater energy & greater wisdom than before. I would rather see the country decimated than an [in]glorious or even an accommodating peace. My passion is to see the fellows crushed or to die in the attempt. Lord John has resigned & the ministry is, we all think, breaking up. It was high time considering the mismanagement of New Castle. We are in the midst of a great snow (great at least for us). Colds are rife in the Parish so that “coughing drowns the Parsons saw”. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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I find the red brick houses are the most striking feature on revisiting
Page 4 this country. Though a great deal smaller than your elegant villas our cottages on the whole please my eyes & look more homey, & very suggestive of good cheer. There is such a quietness & excessive sleepiness about Shropshire — the only excitement being an occasional alehouse brawl — that it is hardly possible to imagine we are at war! The fact is the common people never see a newspaper — & such [is] their confidence in “the Queen's army[”] that they believe prolonged resistance on the part of any power would be impossible & absurd. My cousin in
Page 5 the Crimea still survives contrary to my expectations — we have heard a good anecdote from him. Early on Christmas morning the remains of the regiment to wh. he belongs gatherd painfully together, & as day dawned they all sung the fine English Carol “Christmas Awake.” It is rather touching. I find all here quite well & hearty & hope your people will be the same when this arrives at Concord — a place I shall often revisit in spirit– Pray remember me to your father mother & sister — to Mr Emerson & [C]hanning & do not forget your promise to come over some time
Page 6 to England, which you will find a very snug & hospitable country — though perhaps decaying, & not on such a huge scale as America. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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My romance — the Dream of my life — without which it is not worth living for me — is — a glorious commonwealth– I am persuaded that things must in their way to [ ] be greatly worse before they can become better. Turn it how you will our English nation no longer stands upon the Living Laws of the Eternal God — we have turned ourselves to an empire & cotton bags & the luxury [?] of prodigious manufacture. Let [ ] all go & let us grow great men again
Page 7 instead of dressing up dolls for the market. I feel we are strong enough to live a better life than this one which now festers in all our joints. So much for the confession of a thorough English conservative as you know me to be! You have my direction so pray write — your letter will be forwarded to wherever I may be. Dear Thoreau Ever affectionately your[s] Thos Cholmondeley. ______Henry Thoreau Esqre Concord Massachusetts U.S. North America.
Thoreau was written to by Franklin Benjamin Sanborn in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire.
{No MS — printed copy Sanborn, 1882} “HAMPTON FALLS, N. H., Jan’y 30th, ’55. “MY DEAR SIR,— I have had it in mind to write you a letter ever since the day when you visited me, without my knowing it, at Cambridge. I saw you afterward at the Library, but refrained from introducing myself to you, in the hope that HDT WHAT? INDEX
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I should see you later in the day. But as I did not, will you allow me to seek you out, when next I come to Concord? “The author of the criticism in the ‘Harvard Magazine’ is Mr. Morton of Plymouth, a friend and pupil of your friend, Marston Watson, of that old town. Accordingly I gave him the book which you left with me, judging that it belonged to him. He received it with delight, as a gift of value in itself, and the more valuable for the sake of the giver. “We who at Cambridge look toward Concord as a sort of mecca for our pilgrimages, are glad to see that your last book finds such favor with the public. It has made its way where your name has rarely been heard before, and the inquiry, ’Who is Mr. Thoreau?’ proves that the book has in part done its work. For my own part, I thank you for the new light it shows me the aspects of Nature in, and for the marvelous beauty of your descriptions. At the same time, if any one should ask me what I think of your philosophy, I should be apt to answer that it is not worth a straw. Whenever again you visit Cambridge, be assured, sir, that it would give me much pleas- ure to see you at my room. There, or in Con- cord, I hope soon to see you; if I may intrude so much on your time. “Believe me always, yours very truly, “F.B. SANBORN.”
Minott ... [t]old how Jake Lakin lost a dog, a very valuable one, by a fox leading him on to DOG the ice on the Great Meadows and drowning him.94 GEORGE MINOTT
94. Compare this entry with the entry for January 2, 1859: “Minott says that a fox will lead a dog on to the ice in order that he may get in. Tells of Jake Lakin losing a hound so, which went under the ice and was drowned below the Holt; was found afterward by Sted. Buttrick, his collar taken off and given to Lakin. They used to cross the river there on the ice, going to market, formerly.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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February 17, Saturday: French and Imperial Chinese forces took Shanghai. The city would be held for 17 months by rebels of the Small Sword Society with the active participation of the local populace. CHINESE CIVIL WAR
Piano Concerto no.1 by Franz Liszt was performed for the first time, in the Ducal Palace, Weimar with the composer at the keyboard and the orchestra directed by Hector Berlioz. It was the initial of two joint concerts in Weimar. Both concerts would be sellouts.
At Loudon Centre, New Hampshire, while making a political stump speech in favor of Know-Nothingism, 59- year-old Cyrus Barton fell into the arms of his political opponent Walter Harriman and departed this mortal coil.
February 17. It is still cloudy and a very fine rain. The river very high, one inch higher than the evening of January 31st. The bridge at Sam Barrett’s caved in; also the Swamp Bridge on back road. Muskrats driven out. Heard this morning, at the new stone bridge, from the hill, that singular springlike note of a bird which I heard once before one year about this time (under Fair Haven Hill). The jays were uttering their unusual notes, and this made me think of a woodpecker. It reminds me of the pine warbler, vetter vetter vetter vetter vet, except that it is much louder, and I should say had the sound of l rather than t, — veller, etc., perhaps. Can it be a jay? or a pig[eon] woodpecker? Is it not the earliest springward note of a bird? In the damp misty air Was waked up last night by the tolling of a bell about 11 o’clock, as if a child had hold of the rope. Dressed and went abroad in the wet to see if it was a fire. It seems the town clock was out of order, and the striking part ran down and struck steadily for fifteen minutes. If it had not been so near the end of the week, it might have struck a good part of the night
P.M.— A riparial excursion over further railroad bridge; return by Flint’s Bridge At 2 P. M. the water at the Sam Wheeler Bridge is three inches above straight truss, or two inches higher than at 9 A. M. The ice is not broken over the channel of this stream, but is lifted up and also for a good distance over the meadows, but, for a broad space over the meadows on each side, the freshet stands over the ice, which is flat on the bottom. It rains but a trifle this afternoon, but the snow which is left is still melting. The water is just beginning to be over the road beyond this stone bridge. The road beyond the opposite, or Wood’s, bridge is already impassable to foot-travellers I see no muskrats in the Assabet from the Tommy Wheeler bank. Perhaps they provided themselves holes at the last freshet. It is running over both sides of Derby’s Bridge for a dozen rods (each side), as over a dam. The ice in the middle of this stream is for the most part broken up. Great cakes of ice are wedged against the railroad bridge there, and still threaten its existence. They are about twenty feet in diameter and some twenty inches thick, of greenish ice, more or less tilted up and commonly another, if not two more, of equal size, forced directly underneath the first by the current. They stretch quite across the river, and, being partly tilted up against the spiles of the bridge, exert a tremendous power upon it. They form a dam between and over which the water falls, so that it is fully ten inches higher on the upper side of the bridge than on the lower. Two maples a little above the bridge –one a large one– have been levelled and carried off by the ice. The track-repairers have been at work here all day, protecting the bridge. They have a man on the ice with a rope round his body, —the other end in their hands, —who is cracking off the corners of the cakes with a crowbar. One great cake, as much as a dozen rods long, is slowly whirling round just above the bridge, and from time to time an end is borne against the ice which lies against the bridge. The workmen say that they had cleared the stream here before dinner, and all this had collected since. (Now 3 P. M.) If Derby’s Bridge should yield to the ice which lies against it, this would surely be swept off. They say that three (?) years ago the whole of the east end of the bridge was moved some six inches, rails and all. Waded through water in the road for eight or ten rods, beyond Loring’s little bridge. It was a foot deep this morning on the short road that leads to Heywood’s house. I had to go a quarter of a mile up the meadow there and down the college road. Sam Barrett’s bridge is entirely covered and has slumped. They cross a broad bay in a boat there. I went over on the string-piece of the dam above. It is within eight or nine inches of the top of the little bridge this side of Flint’s Bridge at 5.3O P. M. So, though it is within five and a half inches of where it was three years ago in the spring at the new stone bridge, it is not so high comparatively here. The fact is, the water is in each case dammed not only by the bridges and causeways but by the ice, so that it stands at as many levels as there are causeways. It is perhaps about a foot lower at Flint’s HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Bridge now, than when it stood where it does now at the new stone bridge three years ago. So that a metre at one point alone will not enable you to compare the absolute height or quantity of water at different seasons and under different circumstances. Such a metre is the more to be relied on in proportion as a river is free from obstructions, such as ice, causeways, bridges, etc Everywhere now in the fields you see a green water standing over ice in the hollows. Sometimes it is a very delicate tint of green. Would this water look green on any white ground? It is commonly yellow on meadows in spring. The highway surveyor is on the alert to see what damage the freshet has done. As they could not dig in the frozen ground, they have upset a cartload of pitch pine boughs into the hole at the Swamp Bridge. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1856
Benning W. Sanborn’s THE HISTORY OF CONCORD, FROM ITS FIRST GRANT IN 1725 TO THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT IN 1853, WITH A HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT PENACOOKS was published in Concord, New Hampshire:
http://www.ci.concord.nh.us/library/concordhistory/concordv2.asp?siteindx=L0m,02
THOREAU’S SERMON
[Various versions of “LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE”, variously titled, would be delivered:
•“WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” on December 6, 1854 at Railroad Hall in Providence •“WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” on December 26, 1854 in the New Bedford Lyceum •“WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” on December 28, 1854 at the Athenaeum on Nantucket Island • On January 4, 1855 in the Worcester Lyceum, as “The Connection between Man’s Employment and His Higher Life” •“WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” on February 14, 1855 in the Concord Lyceum •“WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” on November 16, 1856 for the Eagleswood community • “Getting a Living” on December 18, 1856 in the vestry of the Congregational Church of Amherst, New Hampshire •“LIFE MISSPENT” on Sunday morning, October 9, 1859 to the Reverend Theodore Parker’s 28th Congregational Society in Boston Music Hall •“LIFE MISSPENT” on Sunday, September 9, 1860 at Welles Hall in Lowell.] HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1857
In this year, according to SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 35th Congress, 1st session XII, Number 49 (pages 14-21, 70-1, etc.), there were at least 20 negreros from New-York, New Orleans, and other US ports.
The negreros William Clark and Jupiter, of New Orleans, Eliza Jane, of New-York, Jos. H. Record, of Newport, Rhode Island, and Onward, of Boston were captured by British cruisers (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 35th Congress, 1st session XII, Number 49, pages 13, 25-6, 69, etc).
The negrero James Buchanan escaped capture because it was under American colors, while carrying 300 slaves (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 35th Congress, 1st session XII, Number 49, page 38).
The negrero James Titers, of New Orleans, was carrying 1,200 slaves when it was captured by a British cruiser (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 35th Congress, 1st session XII, Number 49, pages 31-4, 40-1).
Four New Orleans negreros were operating along the African coast (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 35th Congress, 1st session, XII, Number 49, page 30).
The negrero Cortes, of New-York, was captured (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 35th Congress, 1st session, XII, Number 49, pages 27-8).
The negrero Charles, of Boston, was captured by British cruisers while carrying 400 slaves (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 35th Congress, 1st session, XII, Number 49, pages 9, 13, 36, 69, etc).
The Adams Gray and W.D. Miller of New Orleans were fully equipped as negreros (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 35th Congress, 1st session, XII, Number 49, pages 3-5, 13).
Between this year and the following one, such American vessels as the Charlotte, of New-York, the Charles, of Maryland, etc., were reported to be negreros (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 35th Congress, 1st session, XII, Number 49, passim).
Slavery had been brought to an end in Rhode Island in 1843 and in Connecticut in 1848. In this year it was ended in New Hampshire as well and the North was poised and positioned to become self-righteous in contradistinction to the recalcitrant South. In analyzing the transition known as “gradual emancipation” in New England, Joanne Pope Melish has specified in considerable detail how the stigma of status, “slave,” gradually evolved into the stigma of being, “black”: Throughout New England the mapping of dependency from the category “slave” onto the category “person of color” was achieved by a range of practices that insisted upon a slavelike status for persons of color in freedom. Actually she has analyzed this in considerable critical detail: The meaning of “free” as it had developed in the ideology of the abolition movement was a category that existed paradoxically in two apparently contradictory semantic domains: “absence” and “availability.” The language of abolition framed the possible HDT WHAT? INDEX
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meanings of “free person of color” as a category to include a state of being for whites along with people of color: “free” always included the state of being “free of slavery,” which included a presumption of freedom from slaves themselves –that is, the promise of the ultimate absence of the humans occupying that category– as a desirable status for white.... In whites’ minds, formally and conceptually, free people of color had no place at all, even though they were physically still present as day or contract laborers. W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: A somewhat more sincere and determined effort to enforce the slave-trade laws now followed; and yet it is a significant fact that not until Lincoln’s administration did a slave-trader suffer death for violating the laws of the United States. The participation of Americans in the trade continued, declining somewhat between 1825 and 1830, and then reviving, until it reached its highest activity between 1840 and 1860. The development of a vast internal slave-trade, and the consequent rise in the South of vested interests strongly opposed to slave smuggling, led to a falling off in the illicit introduction of Negroes after 1825, until the fifties; nevertheless, smuggling never entirely ceased, and large numbers were thus added to the plantations of the Gulf States. Monroe had various constitutional scruples as to the execution of the Act of 1819;95 but, as Congress took no action, he at last put a fair interpretation on his powers, and appointed Samuel Bacon as an agent in Africa to form a settlement for recaptured Africans. Gradually the agency thus formed became merged with that of the Colonization Society on Cape Mesurado; and from this union Liberia was finally evolved.96 Meantime, during the years 1818 to 1820, the activity of the slave-traders was prodigious. General James Tallmadge declared in the House, February 15, 1819: “Our laws are already highly penal against their introduction, and yet, it is a well known fact, that about fourteen thousand slaves have been brought into our country this last year.”97 In the same year Middleton of South Carolina and Wright of Virginia estimated illicit introduction at 13,000 and 15,000 respectively.98 Judge Story, in charging a jury, took occasion to say: “We have but too many proofs from unquestionable sources, that it [the slave-trade] is still carried on with all the implacable rapacity of former times. Avarice has grown more subtle in its evasions, and watches and seizes its prey with an appetite quickened rather than suppressed by its guilty vigils. American citizens are steeped to their very mouths (I can hardly use too bold a figure) in this stream of iniquity.”99 The following year, 1820, brought 95. Attorney-General Wirt advised him, October, 1819, that no part of the appropriation could be used to purchase land in Africa or tools for the Negroes, or as salary for the agent: OPINIONS OF ATTORNEYS-GENERAL, I. 314-7. Monroe laid the case before Congress in a special message Dec. 20, 1819 (HOUSE JOURNAL, 16th Congress 1st session, page 57); but no action was taken there. 96. Cf. Kendall’s Report, August, 1830: SENATE DOCUMENT, 21st Congress 2d session, I. No. 1, pages 211-8; also see below, Chapter X. 97. Speech in the House of Representatives, Feb. 15, 1819, page 18; published in Boston, 1849. 98. Jay, INQUIRY INTO AMERICAN COLONIZATION (1838), page 59, note. 99. Quoted in Friends’ FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE SLAVE TRADE (ed. 1841), pages 7-8. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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some significant statements from various members of Congress. Said Smith of South Carolina: “Pharaoh was, for his temerity, drowned in the Red Sea, in pursuing them [the Israelites] contrary to God’s express will; but our Northern friends have not been afraid even of that, in their zeal to furnish the Southern States with Africans. They are better seamen than Pharaoh, and calculate by that means to elude the vigilance of Heaven; which they seem to disregard, if they can but elude the violated laws of their country.”100 As late as May he saw little hope of suppressing the traffic.101 Sergeant of Pennsylvania declared: “It is notorious that, in spite of the utmost vigilance that can be employed, African negroes are clandestinely brought in and sold as slaves.”102 Plumer of New Hampshire stated that “of the unhappy beings, thus in violation of all laws transported to our shores, and thrown by force into the mass of our black population, scarcely one in a hundred is ever detected by the officers of the General Government, in a part of the country, where, if we are to believe the statement of Governor Rabun, ‘an officer who would perform his duty, by attempting to enforce the law [against the slave trade] is, by many, considered as an officious meddler, and treated with derision and contempt;’ ... I have been told by a gentleman, who has attended particularly to this subject, that ten thousand slaves were in one year smuggled into the United States; and that, even for the last year, we must count the number not by hundreds, but by thousands.”103 In 1821 a committee of Congress characterized prevailing methods as those “of the grossest fraud that could be practised to deceive the officers of government.”104 Another committee, in 1822, after a careful examination of the subject, declare that they “find it impossible to measure with precision the effect produced upon the American branch of the slave trade by the laws above mentioned, and the seizures under them. They are unable to state, whether those American merchants, the American capital and seamen which heretofore aided in this traffic, have abandoned it altogether, or have sought shelter under the flags of other nations.” They then state the suspicious circumstance that, with the disappearance of the American flag from the traffic, “the trade, notwithstanding, increases annually, under the flags of other nations.” They complain of the spasmodic efforts of the executive. They say that the first United States cruiser arrived on the African coast in March, 1820, and remained a “few weeks;” that since then four others had in two years made five visits in all; but “since the middle of last November, the commencement of the healthy season on that coast, no vessel has been, nor, as your committee is informed, is, under orders for that service.”105 The United States African agent, Ayres, reported in 1823: “I was informed by an American officer 100. ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 16th Congress 1st session, pages 270-1. 101. ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 16th Congress 1st session, page 698. 102. ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 16th Congress 1st session, page 1207. 103. ANNALS OF CONGRESS, 16th Congress 1st session, page 1433. 104. Referring particularly to the case of the slaver “Plattsburg.” Cf. HOUSE REPORTS, 17th Congress 1st session, II. No. 92, page 10. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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who had been on the coast in 1820, that he had boarded 20 American vessels in one morning, lying in the port of Gallinas, and fitted for the reception of slaves. It is a lamentable fact, that most of the harbours, between the Senegal and the line, were visited by an equal number of American vessels, and for the sole purpose of carrying away slaves. Although for some years the coast had been occasionally visited by our cruizers, their short stay and seldom appearance had made but slight impression on those traders, rendered hardy by repetition of crime, and avaricious by excessive gain. They were enabled by a regular system to gain intelligence of any cruizer being on the coast.”106 Even such spasmodic efforts bore abundant fruit, and indicated what vigorous measures might have accomplished. Between May, 1818, and November, 1821, nearly six hundred Africans were recaptured and eleven American slavers taken.107 Such measures gradually changed the character of the trade, and opened the international phase of the question. American slavers cleared for foreign ports, there took a foreign flag and papers, and then sailed boldly past American cruisers, although their real character was often well known. More stringent clearance laws and consular instructions might have greatly reduced this practice; but nothing was ever done, and gradually the laws became in large measure powerless to deal with the bulk of the illicit trade. In 1820, September 16, a British officer, in his official report, declares that, in spite of United States laws, “American vessels, American subjects, and American capital, are unquestionably engaged in the trade, though under other colours and in disguise.”108 The United States ship “Cyane” at one time reported ten captures within a few days, adding: “Although they are evidently owned by Americans, they are so completely covered by Spanish papers that it is impossible to condemn them.”109 The governor of Sierra Leone reported the rivers Nunez and Pongas full of renegade European and American slave-traders;110 the trade was said to be carried on “to an extent that almost staggers belief.”111 Down to 1824 or 1825, reports from all quarters prove this activity in slave-trading. The execution of the laws within the country exhibits grave defects and even criminal negligence. Attorney-General Wirt finds it necessary to assure collectors, in 1819, that “it is
105. HOUSE REPORTS, 17th Congress 1st session, II. No. 92, page 2. The President had in his message spoken in exhilarating tones of the success of the government in suppressing the trade. The House Committee appointed in pursuance of this passage made the above report. Their conclusions are confirmed by British reports: PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, 1822, Vol. XXII., SLAVE TRADE, Further Papers, III. page 44. So, too, in 1823, Ashmun, the African agent, reports that thousands of slaves are being abducted. 106. Ayres to the Secretary of the Navy, Feb. 24, 1823; reprinted in FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), page 31. 107. HOUSE REPORTS, 17th Congress 1st session, II. No. 92, pages 5-6. The slavers were the “Ramirez,” “Endymion,” “Esperanza,” “Plattsburg,” “Science,” “Alexander,” “Eugene,” “Mathilde,” “Daphne,” “Eliza,” and “La Pensée.” In these 573 Africans were taken. The naval officers were greatly handicapped by the size of the ships, etc. (cf. FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), pages 33-41). They nevertheless acted with great zeal. 108. PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, 1821, Vol. XXIII., SLAVE TRADE, Further Papers, A, page 76. The names and description of a dozen or more American slavers are given: PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, 1821, Vol. XXIII., SLAVE TRADE, Further Papers, A, pages 18-21. 109. HOUSE REPORTS, 17th Congress 1st session, II. No. 92, pages 15-20. 110. HOUSE DOCUMENT, 18th Congress 1st session, VI. No. 119, page 13. 111. PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, 1823, Vol. XVIII., SLAVE TRADE, Further Papers, A, pages 10-11. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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against public policy to dispense with prosecutions for violation of the law to prohibit the Slave trade.”112 One district attorney writes: “It appears to be almost impossible to enforce the laws of the United States against offenders after the negroes have been landed in the state.”113 Again, it is asserted that “when vessels engaged in the slave trade have been detained by the American cruizers, and sent into the slave- holding states, there appears at once a difficulty in securing the freedom to these captives which the laws of the United States have decreed for them.”114 In some cases, one man would smuggle in the Africans and hide them in the woods; then his partner would “rob” him, and so all trace be lost.115 Perhaps 350 Africans were officially reported as brought in contrary to law from 1818 to 1820: the absurdity of this figure is apparent.116 A circular letter to the marshals, in 1821, brought reports of only a few well-known cases, like that of the “General Ramirez;” the marshal of Louisiana had “no information.”117 There appears to be little positive evidence of a large illicit importation into the country for a decade after 1825. It is hardly possible, however, considering the activity in the trade, that slaves were not largely imported. Indeed, when we note how the laws were continually broken in other respects, absence of evidence of petty smuggling becomes presumptive evidence that collusive or tacit understanding of officers and citizens allowed the trade to some extent.118 Finally, it must be noted that during all this time scarcely a man suffered for participating in the trade, beyond the loss of the Africans and, more rarely, of his ship. Red-handed slavers, caught in the act and convicted, were too often, like La Coste of South Carolina, the subjects of executive clemency.119 In certain cases there were those who even had the effrontery to ask Congress to cancel their own laws. For instance, in 1819 a Venezuelan privateer, secretly fitted out and manned by Americans in Baltimore, succeeded in capturing several American, Portuguese, and Spanish slavers, and appropriating the slaves; being finally wrecked herself, she transferred her crew and slaves to one of her prizes, the “Antelope,” which was eventually captured by a United States cruiser and the 280 Africans sent to Georgia. After much litigation, the United States Supreme Court ordered those captured from Spaniards to be surrendered, and the others to be returned to Africa. By some mysterious process, only 139 Africans now remained, 100 of whom were sent to Africa. The Spanish claimants of the remaining thirty-nine sold them to a certain Mr. Wilde, who gave bond to transport them out of the
112. OPINIONS OF ATTORNEYS-GENERAL, V. 717. 113. R.W. Habersham to the Secretary of the Navy, August, 1821; reprinted in FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), page 47. 114. FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), page 42. 115. FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), page 43. 116. Cf. above, pages 126-7. 117. FRIENDS’ VIEW OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE (1824), page 42. 118. A few accounts of captures here and there would make the matter less suspicious; these, however, do not occur. How large this suspected illicit traffic was, it is of course impossible to say; there is no reason why it may not have reached many hundreds per year. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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country. Finally, in December, 1827, there came an innocent petition to Congress to cancel this bond.120 A bill to that effect passed and was approved, May 2, 1828,121 and in consequence these Africans remained as slaves in Georgia. On the whole, it is plain that, although in the period from 1807 to 1820 Congress laid down broad lines of legislation sufficient, save in some details, to suppress the African slave trade to America, yet the execution of these laws was criminally lax. Moreover, by the facility with which slavers could disguise their identity, it was possible for them to escape even a vigorous enforcement of our laws. This situation could properly be met only by energetic and sincere international co- operation....122
119. Cf. editorial in Niles’s Register, XXII. 114. Cf. also the following instances of pardons: — PRESIDENT JEFFERSON: March 1, 1808, Phillip M. Topham, convicted for “carrying on an illegal slave-trade” (pardoned twice). PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, I. 146, 148-9. PRESIDENT MADISON: July 29, 1809, fifteen vessels arrived at New Orleans from Cuba, with 666 white persons and 683 negroes. Every penalty incurred under the Act of 1807 was remitted. (Note: “Several other pardons of this nature were granted.”) PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, I. 179. Nov. 8, 1809, John Hopkins and Lewis Le Roy, convicted for importing a slave. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, I. 184-5. Feb. 12, 1810, William Sewall, convicted for importing slaves. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, I. 194, 235, 240. May 5, 1812, William Babbit, convicted for importing slaves. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, I. 248. PRESIDENT MONROE: June 11, 1822, Thomas Shields, convicted for bringing slaves into New Orleans. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 15. Aug. 24, 1822, J.F. Smith, sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and $3000 fine; served twenty-five months and was then pardoned. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 22. July 23, 1823, certain parties liable to penalties for introducing slaves into Alabama. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 63. Aug. 15, 1823, owners of schooner “Mary,” convicted of importing slaves. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 66. PRESIDENT J.Q. ADAMS: March 4, 1826, Robert Perry; his ship was forfeited for slave-trading. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 140. Jan. 17, 1827, Jesse Perry; forfeited ship, and was convicted for introducing slaves. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 158. Feb. 13, 1827, Zenas Winston; incurred penalties for slave-trading. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 161. The four following cases are similar to that of Winston: — Feb. 24, 1827, John Tucker and William Morbon. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 162. March 25, 1828, Joseph Badger. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 192. Feb. 19, 1829, L.R. Wallace. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 215. PRESIDENT JACKSON: Five cases. PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, IV. 225, 270, 301, 393, 440. The above cases were taken from manuscript copies of the Washington records, made by Mr. W.C. Endicott, Jr., and kindly loaned me. 120. See SENATE JOURNAL, 20th Congress 1st session, pages 60, 66, 340, 341, 343, 348, 352, 355; HOUSE JOURNAL, 20th Congress 1st session, pages 59, 76, 123, 134, 156, 169, 173, 279, 634, 641, 646, 647, 688, 692. 121. STATUTES AT LARGE, VI. 376. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1858
July 10, Saturday: The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle placed itself under the leadership of Father Thomas (Isaac Hecker), and had his portrait done in oil by George Peter Alexander Healy:
PAULIST FATHERS In Tuckerman’s Ravine in New Hampshire:
July 10. Saturday. Wentworth says he once collected one hundred pounds of spruce gum and sold it at Biddeford for forty cents per pound. Says there are “sable lines” about here. They trap them, but rarely see them. His neighbor, who lives on the hill behind where we camped on the 6th, has four hours more sun than he. He can, accordingly, make hay better, but W. beats him in corn. The days are about forty minutes longer on top of Mt. Washington than at seashore, according to guide-book. The sun set to us here at least an hour earlier than usual. This ravine at the bottom of which we were, looking westward up it, had a rim somewhat like that of the crater of a volcano. The head of it bore from camp about N. 65° W., looking nearer than it was; the highest rock, with the outline of a face on it on the south rim, S. 32° W.; a very steep cliff on the opposite side, N. 20° W.; and over the last we judged was the summit of Mt. Washington. As I understood Wentworth, this was in Pingree’s Grant; the Glen House in Pinkham’s Grant. To-day and yesterday clouds were continually drifting over the summit, commonly extending about down to the edge of the ravine. When we looked up that way, the black patch made by our fire looked like a shadow on the mountainside. When I tasted the water under the snow arch the day before, I was disappointed at its warmth, though it was in fact melted snow; but half a mile lower it tasted colder. Probably, the ice being cooled by the neighborhood of the snow, it seemed thus warmer by contrast. The only animals we saw about our camp were a few red squirrels. W. said there were striped ones about the mountains. The Fringilla hyemalis was most common in the upper part of the ravine, and I saw a large bird of prey, perhaps an eagle, sailing over the head of the ravine. The wood thrush and veery sang regularly, especially morning and evening. But, above all, the peculiar and memorable songster was that Monadnock-like one, keeping up an exceedingly brisk and lively strain. It was remarkable for its incessant twittering flow. Yet we never got within sight of the bird, at least while singing, so that I could not identify it, and my lameness 122. Among interesting minor proceedings in this period were two Senate bills to register slaves so as to prevent illegal importation. They were both dropped in the House; a House proposition to the same effect also came to nothing: SENATE JOURNAL, 15th Congress 1st session, pages 147, 152, 157, 165, 170, 188, 201, 203, 232, 237; 15th Congress 2d session, pages 63, 74, 77, 202, 207, 285, 291, 297; HOUSE JOURNAL, 15th Congress 1st session, page 332; 15th Congress 2d session, pages 303, 305, 316; 16th Congress 1st session, page 150. Another proposition was contained in the Meigs resolution presented to the House, Feb. 5, 1820, which proposed to devote the public lands to the suppression of the slave-trade. This was ruled out of order. It was presented again and laid on the table in 1821: HOUSE JOURNAL, 16th Congress 1st session, pages 196, 200, 227; 16th Congress 2d session, page 238. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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prevented my pursuing it. I heard it afterward, even in the Franconia Notch. It was surprising for its steady and uninterrupted flow, for when one stopped, another appeared to take up the strain. It reminded me of a fine corkscrew stream issuing with incessant lisping tinkle from a cork, flowing rapidly, and I said that he had pulled out the spile and left it running.[Thoreau seems here to be describing the song of the winter wren.] That was the rhythm, but with a sharper tinkle of course. It had no more variety than that, but it was more remarkable for its continuance and monotonousness than any bird’s note I ever heard. It evidently belongs only to cool mountainsides, high up amid the fir and spruce. I saw once flitting through the fir-tops restlessly a small white and dark bird, sylvia-like, which may have been it. Sometimes they appeared to be attracted by our smoke. The note was so incessant that at length you only noticed when it ceased. The black flies were of various sizes here, much larger than I noticed in Maine. They compelled me most of the time to sit in the smoke, which I preferred to wearing a veil. They lie along your forehead in a line, where your hat touches it, or behind your ears, or about your throat (if not protected by a beard), or into the rims of the eyes, or between the knuckles, and there suck till they are crushed. But fortunately they do not last far into the evening, and a wind or a fog disperses them. I did not mind them much, but I noticed that men working on the highway made a fire to keep them off. I find many of them accidentally pressed in my botany and plant book. A botanist’s books, if he has ever visited the primitive northern woods, will be pretty sure to contain these specimens of the black fly. Anything but mosquitoes by night. Plenty of fly-blowing flies, but I saw no ants in the dead wood; some spiders. In the afternoon, Hoar, Blake, and Brown ascended the slide on the south to the highest rock. They were more than an hour getting up, but we heard them shout distinctly from the top. Hoar found near the edge of the ravine there, between the snow there and edge, Rhododendron Lapponicum, some time out of bloom,123 growing in the midst of empetrum and moss; Arctostaphylos alpina, going to seed; Polygonum viviparum, in prime;124 and Salix herbacea125 a pretty, trailing, roundish-leaved willow, going to seed, but apparently not so early as the S.
123. According to Durand, at 68° in Greenland. 124. According to Durand, at all Kane’s stations. 125. According to Durand, at 73° in Greenland. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Uva-ursi.
July 16, Friday: Since February 11th Bernadette Soubirous had experienced a total of 18 apparitions of “a small young lady” (uo petito damizelo) standing in a niche in the rock at the grotto of Massabielle outside Lourdes, France. The figure appeared to be attired in a white veil and a blue girdle, with a golden rose on each foot. It was holding a rosary of pearls. Her sister and friend, who had accompanied this 14-year-old, reported that they had themselves witnessed nothing of this.
July 16 Friday: Continue on through Thornton and Campton. The butternut is first noticed in these towns, a common tree. Urtica Canadense in Campton. About the mountains were wilder and rarer birds, more or less arctic, like the vegetation. I did not even hear the robin on them, and when I had left them a few miles behind, it was a great change and surprise to hear the lark, the wood pewee, the robin, and the bobolink (for the last had not done singing). On the mountains, especially at Tuckerman’s Ravine, the notes even of familiar birds sounded strange to me. I hardly knew the wood thrush and veery and oven-bird at first. They sing differently there.126 In two instances, –going down the Mt. Jefferson road and along the road in the Franconia Notch,– I started an F. hyemalis within two feet, close to the roadside, but looked in vain for a nest. They alight and sit thus close. I doubt if the chipping sparrow is found about the mountains. 126. [His wood thrush and veery were probably the olive-backed thrush and the Bicknell thrush.] HDT WHAT? INDEX
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We were not troubled at all by black flies after leaving the Franconia Notch. It is apparently only in primitive woods that they work. We had grand views of the Franconia Mountains from Campton, and were surprised by the regular pyramidal form of most of the peaks, including Lafayette, which we had ascended. I think that there must be some ocular illusion about this, for no such regularity was observable in ascending Lafayette. I remember that when I got more than half a mile down it I met two men walking up, and perspiring very much, one of whom asked me if a cliff within a stone’s throw before them was the summit. Indeed the summit of a mountain, though it may appear thus regular at a distance, is not, after all, the easiest thing to find, even in clear weather. The surface was so irregular that you would have thought you saw the summit a dozen times before you did, and in one sense the nearer you got to it, the further off it was. I told the man it was seven or eight times as far as that. I suspect that such are the laws of light that our eye, as it were, leaps from one prominence to another, connecting them by a straight line when at a distance and making one side balance the other. So that when the summit viewed is fifty or a hundred miles distant, there is but very general and very little truth in the impression of its outline conveyed to the mind. Seen from Campton and lower, the Franconia Mountains show three or four sharp and regular blue pyramids, reminding you of pictures of the Pyramids of Egypt, though when near you suspected no such resemblance. You know from having climbed them, most of the time out of sight of the summit, that they must be at least of a scalloped outline, and it is hardly to be supposed that a nearer or more distant prominence always is seen at a distance filling up the irregularities. It would seem as if by some law of light and vision the eye inclined to connect the base and apex of a peak in the horizon by a straight line. Twenty- five miles off, in this case, you might think that the summit was a smooth inclined plane, though you can reach it only over a succession of promontories and shelves.
Cannon Mountain on the west side of the Franconia Notch (on whose side is the profile) is the most singularly lumpish mass of any mountain I ever saw, especially so high. It looks like a behemoth or a load of hay, and suggests no such pyramid as I have described. So my theory does not quite hold together, and I would say that HDT WHAT? INDEX
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the eye needs only a hint of the general form and completes the outline from the slightest suggestion. The huge lumpish mass and curving outline of Cannon Mountain is yet more remarkable than the pyramidal summits of the others. It would be less remarkable in a mere hill, but it is, in fact, an elevated and bald rocky mountain. My last view of these Franconia Mountains was from a hill in the road just this side of Plymouth village. Campton apparently affords the best views of them, and some artists board there. Gathered the Carex straminea (?), some three feet high, scoparia-like, in Bridgewater. Nooned on west bank of the Pemigewasset, half a mile above the New Hampton covered bridge. Saw first pitch pines in New Hampton. Saw chestnuts first and frequently in Franklin and Boscawen, or about 43½ N., or half a degree higher than Emerson put it. It was quite common in Hollis. Of oaks, I saw and heard only of the red in the north of New Hampshire. The witch-hazel was very abundant and large in the north part of New Hampshire and about the mountains. Lodged at tavern in Franklin, west side of river.
July 17, Saturday: When Henry Thoreau hiked into Weare, New Hampshire on a Saturday, he jotted into his journal that there were “many Friends in this town” and that he knew “Rogers here”:
Reached Weare and put up at a quiet and agreeable house, without any sign or barroom. Many Friends in this town. Know Pillsbury and Rogers here.
July 17, Saturday: Passed by Webster’s place, three miles this side of the village. Some half-dozen houses there; no store nor public buildings. A very quiet place. Road lined with elms and maples. Railroad between house and barn. The farm apparently a level and rather sandy interval, nothing particularly attractive about it. A plain public graveyard within its limits. Saw the grave of Ebenezer Webster, Esq., who died 1806, aged sixty-seven, and of Abigail, his wife, who died 1816, aged seventy-six, probably Webster’s father and mother; also of other Websters, and Haddocks. Now belongs to one Fay [?] of Boston. W. was born two or more DANIEL WEBSTER miles northwest, but house now gone. Spent the noon on the bank of the Contoocook in the northwest corner of Concord, there a stagnant river owing to dams. Began to find raspberries ripe. Saw much elecampane by roadsides near farmhouses, all the way through New Hampshire. Reached Weare and put up at a quiet and agreeable house, without any sign or barroom. Many Friends in this HDT WHAT? INDEX
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town. Know Pillsbury and Rogers here. The former lived in Henniker, next town. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1860
By this point in time, the Great Stone Face had become one of the best-known images of New England as well as one of the primary tourist attractions of our nation. The Franconia Notch had become a mere setting for this cameo. When tourists made their pilgrimage, they paid for rooms at the Profile House, and rowed in Profile Lake, and climbed Profile Mountain. However, the American elite, fickle, had taken their business elsewhere — specifically to Newport, Rhode Island: Newport by the 1860s was the most socially exclusive and fashionable American resort. Its rise to prominence mirrored that of the White Mountains in almost every detail, from the “discovery” of its scenery in the 1840s to its “discovery” by the wealthiest New Yorkers in the 1860s. Its social and financial requirements were becoming more rigorous than those of any of the other resorts of New England. Although it was not yet exclusively the home of millionaires that it was to become by the 1880s and 1890s, its name was already synonymous with money and high society. And for many of those living in the nearby towns of southern New England, the name Newport was also synonymous with the vice and idleness of the rich.
CAPE COD: The time must come when this coast will be a place of resort for those New-Englanders who really wish to visit the sea- side. At present it is wholly unknown to the fashionable world, and probably it will never be agreeable to them. If it is merely a ten-pin alley, or a circular railway, or an ocean of mint-julep, that the visitor is in search of, –if he thinks more of the wine than the brine, as I suspect some do at Newport,– I trust that for a long time he will be disappointed here. But this shore will never be more attractive than it is now. Such beaches as are fashionable are here made and unmade in a day, I may almost say, by the sea shifting its sands. Lynn and Nantasket! this bare and bended arm it is that makes the bay in which they lie so snugly. What are springs and waterfalls? Here is the spring of springs, the waterfall of waterfalls. A storm in the fall or winter is the tide to visit it; a light-house or a fisherman’s hut the true hotel. A man may stand there and put all America behind him.
NEWPORT HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1862
Charles Follen Folsom, son of a Concord minister, graduated from Harvard College. He would become a physician. NEW “HARVARD MEN”
An Englishman, a real Englishman, Anthony Trollope, was finally, belatedly induced to confess, that Harvard College had achieved its ambition, had become
what Cambridge and Oxford are to England. It is the ... University which gives the highest education to ... the highest classes in that country.
(This was in his NORTH AMERICA.)
Trollope commented that the tourist-ridden White Mountains of New Hampshire were at this point “dotted with huge hotels, almost as thickly as they lie in Switzerland.”
He reported that Waldo Emerson had remarked, during a lecture in Boston’s Tremont Hall on the subject of civil war in 1860, that “Your American eagle is very well. Protect it here and abroad. But beware of the American peacock.” James Ferguson Conant has since remarked this in his essay “Cavell and the Concept of America” (CONTENDING WITH STANLEY CAVELL, ed. Russell B. Goodman, Oxford UP, 2005, page 55): Is there, as President Woodrow Wilson thought, an internal relation between the concept of America and a certain ideal? Or is it that, as Chesterton thought, there is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals? Or does America stripped of its ideals amount to nothing more than President Coolidge’s view of the matter? Or is there a distinction to be drawn, as Waldo Emerson thought, between the ideal and its debasement by those HDT WHAT? INDEX
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who most loudly proclaim it?
(deathmask) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1864
In order to be able to build a cog railroad to the summit of Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Sylvester Marsh bought out Horace Fabyan’s interest in The Notch’s tourist industry. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1865
Sarah Kellogg King Hale, wife of Salma Hale of Keene, New Hampshire, died. She had helped raise funds to restore Mount Vernon. HDT WHAT? INDEX
NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW HAMPSHIRE
1866
November 19, day: Salma Hale died in Somerville, Massachusetts. The grave is at the Woodland Cemetery in Keene, New Hampshire. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1869
1st mountain climbing cog railroad, at Mt. Washington in New Hampshire.
February 8, day: The paper mill of Moses Cheney and Charles Cheney in Henniker, New Hampshire burned, so to support his wife and year-old daughter, Charles Cheney would become a traveling salesman of paper products.
April 1, Thursday: William Cooper Nell got married with 27-year-old Frances A. Ames of Nashau, New Hampshire.
October 8, Friday: J. Frank Duryea, with the assistance of his brother, invented the very 1st auto built and operated in the United States of America.
Franklin Pierce died at 4:40AM in Concord, New Hampshire. The body would be buried:
Although the biographer Larry Gara would lay emphasis upon the difficult period in which Pierce had held office as the 14th President of the United States of America, his conclusion would be quite straightforward: [T]here is no question that by the mid-fifties it was no longer possible to persuade northern voters to accept a program of further slave extension. Yet that is precisely what Pierce tried to do. Moreover, it would have taken political genius to HDT WHAT? INDEX
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persuade the South to relinquish not only slavery itself but the power disproportionate to the southern voting population which derived from slavery. Franklin Pierce was no genius. Indeed, the ordinary demands of the office were often beyond his ability. He was a politician of limited ability, and instead of growing in his job, he was overwhelmed by it.
(Pierce has perhaps unfairly been stuck with what is a properly “Lincolnesque” attitude, that the benefits of American political union outweigh any human harm that might be being perpetrated on account of slavery. Perhaps this is the reason that politico.com now offers, for $15.95 plus shipping and handling, this bobblehead doll of him — that actually makes him look more than a little bit like a young Lincoln.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1871
February 24, Friday: Charles Darwin’s THE DESCENT OF MAN, AND SELECTION IN RELATION TO SEX appeared in two volumes in London. This work cited the 1854 text by Dr. Josiah Clark Nott and George Robin Gliddon TYPES OF MANKIND: OR, ETHNOLOGICAL RESEARCHES, BASED UPON THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS, PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES, AND CRANIA OF RACES, AND UPON THEIR NATURAL, GEOGRAPHICAL, PHILOLOGICAL, AND BIBLICAL HISTORY: ILLUSTRATED BY SELECTIONS FROM THE INEDITED PAPERS OF SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON, M.D., AND BY ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS FROM PROF. L. AGASSIZ, LL.D., W. USHER, M.D.; AND PROF. H.S. PATTERSON, M.D. (London: Trübner; Philadelphia), popularizing the polygenist theory of separate origins for various races of humans, as an example of the attempt to consider the races of man to be separate species (Darwin insisting that to the contrary, all humanity is one single species).
Benjamin Dudley Emerson made his will. He would leave, for a schoolteacher, surprisingly large sums to his alma mater Dartmouth College, and to his home town Hampstead, New Hampshire: I, Benjamin D. Emerson of West Roxbury, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, make this my last will and Testament. ... 8th. All the residue of my estate, real and personal, I direct shall be sold by my executors, at public or private sale, according to their best discretion, as soon as conveniently may be after my decease, and the proceeds applied as hereinafter directed. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Whereas it is my desire to provide for the establishment and permanent maintenance in my native town of Hampstead, in the state of New Hampshire, of a school to be called “The Hampstead High School,” and to be for the free use and benefit of that town forever, but only upon the following conditions, namely:— First. That within two years from the final probate of this Will, there shall be procured from the Legislature of said State an act of incorporation, making seven persons, namely, John Ordway, Tristram Little, William C. Little, Amos Buck, Amos Ring, and Frederick A. Pike, together with the pastor of the present Congregational Society in town for the time being, ex-officio, or such of said persons as shall then be living and residing in said Hampstead, together with such other persons residing in said town as said Legislature may name in the place of any who may have deceased or removed from said town, a body corporate by the name of the “Trustees of Hampstead High School,” with the power to fill all vacancies that may occur in their own body, and to establish, govern, maintain, and administer a high school in said town of Hampstead, subject to the substantial observance of the following principles and regulations, which are to be regarded as the fundamental constitution of said school, namely: (1) The said school shall be open and free to youth of both sexes belonging to said town of Hampstead, impartially and without distinction; but no scholar shall be admitted who shall not have attained the age of twelve years, and who can read, write and spell the English language with reasonable correctness and facility, considering his or her age; nor shall any scholar be admitted or retained who does not sustain a good moral character. (2) The whole number of scholars in said school shall not exceed thirty at anyone time. (3) No person 8hall be appointed to the office of preceptor or master of said school, who has not been regularly graduated at some University or College in our country, or who does not sustain a good moral character. (4) It shall be the duty of the preceptor to commence the daily exercises of the school by reading, or causing to be read, some portion of the sacred scriptures, and by prayer; and on each alternate Saturday during school term, he shall be required to devote one half hour at least to instruction calculated to improve the manners and morals of his pupils, impressing on their minds the duty of practising the cardinal virtues of truth, temperance, modesty, industry, benevolence, and especially filial love and obedience, and deference and. respect for old age. The last named virtues, which have been too much neglected in later years, should be made an important part in every youth’s education: they are indispensable to the forming of good morals and good manners, as well as the religious character. I cannot too strongly urge their claim upon those who have in charge the education of youth. The emphatic words of Sacred Writ are, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God.” On each other alternate Saturday during HDT WHAT? INDEX
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term time, said preceptor shall devote one half hour or more to the inculcation of the doctrine and practice of religion 88 displayed in the Old and New Testaments, and as exemplified in the conduct of our great exampler, Jesus Christ, and his disciples; carefully excluding all sectarianism and uncharitableness, as tending to not only to make the narrow way still narrower without necessity, but even turn it from its heavenly direction: it being believed that simply inculcating the doctrine of the Saviour and his apostles, 88 nearly 88 possible in their own language, without attempting to make proselytes to the peculiar views of any class of Christians, is the best instruction in religious knowledge. Second. That within three years of the final probate of said Will the said town of Hampstead. shall erect a suitable and substantial schoolhouse, satisfactory to said trustees, 011 a lot of land containing not less than one acre, measuring not less than two hundred and ten feet on any side, and situated in said Hampstead, on the main road between the Old Meeting House and the house formerly owned by Dr. James Knight, at the corner of what is called “Kent’s Farm Road,” and shall within said three years convey said lot of land, with said schoolhouse finished and well fitted for the reception of scholars, to the said Trustees for the use of the said High school forever; the said lot to be planted with not less than fifty ornamental shade trees, one half elms, and the other one half sugar maples, and the distance between the schoolhouse and the road to be not less than one hundred feet. Now, therefore, in case the foregoing conditions are complied with, then, and not otherwise, I direct my executors to pay one half of the net proceeds of the sale of my real estate in West Roxbury, together with one-half of any net income of such proceeds that may accrue before the time of such payment, to the said Trustees of the Hampstead High School upon the following trusts: namely, to invest the same, and from time to time to change the investments, having regard always to the safety of the fund, rather than to its productiveness; and all the net income thereof, but no part of the principal, to apply to the use, benefit, and support of said High School, forever. • • • • • • • • • • In witness whereof I hereto set my hand and declare this to be my last will in the presence of three witnesses, this twenty- fourth day of February A.D. eighteen hundred and seventy-one. BENJAMIN D. EMERSON. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1872
October 1, Tuesday: Benjamin Dudley Emerson died at Jamaica Plain near Boston. He left the magnificent sum of $100,000, equivalent to some ten millions of dollars today, to his alma mater, Dartmouth College. By his will probated in 1871 he also founded a new high school for his home town of Hampstead, New Hampshire.
Clearly above in the report from the New-York Times, the Boston Journal would get it a bit wrong, for it would indicate that Emerson had left money to found a library rather than a school. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1928?
Margaret Sanger angrily resigned as president of the American Birth Control League as her leadership in the movement was eclipsed by younger professionals with more mainstream agendas. The American Birth Control League and the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau would merge in 1939 into the Birth Control Federation of America (later to be renamed Planned Parenthood Federation of America).
At some point in the late 1920s (I am positioning the information in 1928 merely for convenience), with the Great Stone Face showing signs of weathering and losing its resemblance to a human profile, and so the State of New Hampshire, struggling to preserve its tourist industry, began to attempt to bolt and chain these rocks in position. A great rock facelift.
Before HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1960
The Great Stone Face, one of our nation’s foundational tourist icons, had been since the late 1920s in danger of collapse. In this year the New Hampshire highway commission renewed its efforts to hold it together with cables connected to anchoring spikes, and with epoxy glue. Four metal turnbuckles were installed to hold on the forehead block for the time being.
Before The man who took over the maintenance of the rock formation, David C. Nielson, would install the ashes of his father, Niels F.F. Nielson, Jr., inside its famous eyesocket. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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2003
May 3: The Great Stone Face fell overnight. Nobody even heard it fall. It’s all gone. Since about 1960 it had been being held together with cables connected to anchoring spikes, and epoxy glue.
Before (With this rock formation, of course, fell the ashes of the guy who had been interred in the eye-socket. So it goes.)
Not that this has anything to do with our falling face, but in the newspapers on this fatal day, a dude who had been born in Concord and grew up in Carlyle, Darby Conley, happened to be including a reference to Thoreau in his comic strip, “Fuzzy”:
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project New Hampshire HDT WHAT? INDEX
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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 2014. 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, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. 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: August 15, 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
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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