ARNOLD ARBORETUM And yet — in fact you need only draw a single thread at any point you choose out of the fabric of life and the run will make a pathway across the whole, and down that wider pathway each of the other threads will become successively visible, one by one. — Heimito von Doderer, DIE DÂIMONEN “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARNOLD ARBORETUM 1781 September 9, Sunday: James Arnold was born to the Quaker family of Thomas Arnold and Mary Brown Arnold in Providence, Rhode Island. As a youth, Friend James would enter the whaling enterprise of Friend William Rotch, Jr. in New Bedford, eventually getting married with the boss’s daughter, Friend Sarah Rotch, and becoming a partner, and accumulating a vast whale-oil fortune — for which eventually he would find there to be no blood heirs. “The whaler was a kind of pirate-miner — an excavator of oceanic oil, stoking the furnace of the Industrial Revolution as much as any man digging coal out of the earth.” — Philip Hoare, THE WHALE: IN SEARCH OF THE GIANTS OF THE SEA (NY: HarperCollins, March 2010) MOBY-DICK, THE OIL SPILL NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1786 June 3, Saturday: Sarah Rotch was born on Nantucket Island, in the Quaker family of William Rotch, Jr. NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARNOLD ARBORETUM 1807 October 29, Thursday: Denmark allied with France against Britain. Friend James Arnold got married with Friend Sarah Rotch. The couple would have one daughter, Elizabeth Rotch Arnold, born during January 1809, who would get married with a Dr. Tuttle but without issue, and who would die during October 1860 just after the death of her mother his wife — leaving him entirely without a blood heir for his accumulated vast whale-oil gains. “The whaler was a kind of pirate-miner — an excavator of oceanic oil, stoking the furnace of the Industrial Revolution as much as any man digging coal out of the earth.” — Philip Hoare, THE WHALE: IN SEARCH OF THE GIANTS OF THE SEA (NY: HarperCollins, March 2010) MOBY-DICK, THE OIL SPILL Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 29th of 10th M / Rode to Portsmouth with E R stopt at P L, & from there to the meeting house with my endeared H - In our first meeting soon after taking my seat my mind was very feelingly cloathed with the precious ownings of divine favor which so rejoiced my spirit that a song of thankfulness arose to the Lord for once more favoring me with the light of his countenance - Our friend O W Stood up & very feeling invited us in the language of “Come brother come sister let us go up to mountain of the Lord & to the House of the God of Jacob & he will teach us his ways & we will walk in his Paths” & said it was the desire of his mind that we might come out of the form & cleave to the Substance, come from the outward to the inner temple where his holyness dwells & he believed was this the case with us we should find in us “a well springing up unto eternal life” A Robinson soon rose & said she could say in sincerity that her Spirit Said Amen to the invitation but a query soon rose “Who shall go up this holy mountain without a preparatory exercise? even Moses that faithful servant of the Lord could not ascend without first putting off his Shoes for the Ground whereon he stood was holy,” she very feelingly pointed out the way to prepare to ascend the holy mountain & encoraged all to begin that their days work may be completed the part of the meeting for discipline was pretty well conducted & for my own part I feel thankful I was there & it is the Secret prayer of my soul that the present favor may not vanish like the early dew but remain for many days - Dined at P L; & rode home before dark - R T was appointed clerk of the mens & H R of the womens Meeting, HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY I feel desirous strength may be given them in proportion to their trials & in proportion to their faith I trust help will be afforded unto them -6th day 30 of 10 M 1807 / If it was safe to boast I should be allmost ready too of this as a very favord day for me, Oh soul Dwell deep for it is in the deep & thro’ the deep that we must travel ’ere we can become inheriters of the promised land of rest - In the eveng called a R T’s & at Aunt M Gould - RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 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 Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARNOLD ARBORETUM 1815 Benjamin Bussey, the proprietor of the Dedham Woolen Mills, built his mansion home at “Woodland Hill,” his West Roxbury farm. ARNOLD ARBORETUM THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1835 Benjamin Bussey, the proprietor of the Dedham Woolen Mills, willed the 135-acre grounds of his farm estate in West Roxbury, including his mansion “Woodland Hill,” to Harvard College to be used as an agricultural station. This bequest would for a time bear his name, as the “Bussey Institution.” ARNOLD ARBORETUM THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARNOLD ARBORETUM 1847 Friend James Arnold, an owner of a whaling vessel, participated in the formation of a New Bedford Horticultural Society. ARNOLD ARBORETUM HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY A city charter was granted by the Massachusetts legislature. Abraham Hathaway Howland was elected as the city of New Bedford’s first Mayor. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARNOLD ARBORETUM 1851 In New Bedford, Friend Sarah Rotch Arnold donated a home she had inherited to the Port Society for use as a mariners’ home (this edifice still stands as such on Johnny Cake Hill next to the Seamens Bethel and across from the Whaling Museum). CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1859 George B. Emerson received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard College. NEW “HARVARD MEN” Petroleum was discovered in Pennsylvania. This was, of course, a disaster for New Bedford, Massachusetts, and for oil magnates there such as Emerson’s in-law the whaleship owner Friend James Arnold. Petroleum would soon replace whale oil as the primary lighting fuel, setting in motion the irreversible decline of the whaling industry, there and elsewhere. HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARNOLD ARBORETUM “The whaler was a kind of pirate-miner — an excavator of oceanic oil, stoking the furnace of the Industrial Revolution as much as any man digging coal out of the earth.” — Philip Hoare, THE WHALE: IN SEARCH OF THE GIANTS OF THE SEA (NY: HarperCollins, March 2010) MOBY-DICK, THE OIL SPILL HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1860 It is remarkable, how differently different rich old men dispose of their excess funds, once they have them and have nothing with which to preoccupy themselves! In this year Henry Grinnell contributed to the voyage of Isaac Israel Hayes, and he would contribute to the three expeditions that would be made during the decade by Charles Francis Hall. He would regularly correspond with the unsuccessful explorer William Parker Snow. THE FROZEN NORTH Meanwhile, late in the year, having suddenly come to be without a blood heir for his oil wealth upon the deaths of his wife and only child, Friend James Arnold was revising his will and contemplating the commission of a philanthropy. “The whaler was a kind of pirate-miner — an excavator of oceanic oil, stoking the furnace of the Industrial Revolution as much as any man digging coal out of the earth.” — Philip Hoare, THE WHALE: IN SEARCH OF THE GIANTS OF THE SEA (NY: HarperCollins, March 2010) MOBY-DICK, THE OIL SPILL In this matter Friend James turned to three men of repute, his in-law George Barrell Emerson who was engaged in the growing of trees on the promontory that stretched into Boston Bay on the northeastern side of Chelsea harbor, the family friend John James Dixwell, president of the Massachusetts Bank, who was active in the Boston Society of Natural History and was engaged in the growing of trees on his Jamaica Plain estate on Moss Hill, and the Boston trust attorney Francis E. Parker. WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” HDT WHAT? INDEX ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARNOLD ARBORETUM May 9, Wednesday: The New-York Tribune had an advert for James Redpath’s ECHOES OF HARPER’S FERRY, a volume about the raid by Captain John Brown on Harpers Ferry which contained Henry Thoreau’s “A Plea for Captain John Brown” and his “Remarks at Concord on the Day of the Execution of John Brown.” J(ames) M(atthew) Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland.