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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Loved Melissa Berry's column

A letter written by Jim Morrocco about my article The Brits are coming! Or not

Beverly Historical Society trustee and creator of the Ghost Army slideshow

Friday, July 26, 2013

Judge Franklin Davenport

Originally posted Wednesday, April 18, 2012 By Bryan Bonfiglio Village Green Preservation Society Blog I also included a genealogy portion after the article to include his lines from: NEHGS Volume 32
1798 Portrait of Deborah Davenport of Woodbury, NJ courtesy of  Library Company of Philadelphia's Digital Collections

It is my understanding that the Deborah Davenport pictured here is the sister of "Gloucester County's Most Famous Citizen", Franklin Davenport. Nephew of Benjamin Franklin, a Senator and a Representative from New Jersey; born in Philadelphia, Pa., in September 1755; received an academic education; studied law in Burlington, N.J.; admitted to the bar in 1776 and commenced practice in Gloucester City, N.J.; clerk of Gloucester County Court in 1776; during the Revolutionary War enlisted as a private in the New Jersey Militia, later becoming brigade major, brigade quartermaster, and in 1778 assistant quartermaster for Gloucester County; appointed colonel in the New Jersey Militia in 1779 and subsequently major general, which rank he held until his death; prosecutor of pleas in 1777; moved to Woodbury, N.J., in 1781 and continued the practice of law; appointed first surrogate of Gloucester County in 1785; member, State general assembly 1786-1789; colonel in the New Jersey Line during the Whiskey Insurrection of 1794; appointed brigadier general of Gloucester County Militia in 1796; appointed to the United States Senate as a Federalist to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Rutherfurd, and served from December 5, 1798, to March 3, 1799, when a successor was elected and qualified; elected to the Sixth Congress (March 4, 1799-March 3, 1801); was not a candidate for renomination in 1800; resumed the practice of law; appointed master in chancery in 1826; died in Woodbury, Gloucester County, N.J., July 27, 1832; interment in Presbyterian Cemetery, North Woodbury, N.J. (Stewart) Franklin Davenport was also responsible for introducing Freemasonry to Woodbury in July 1792 with the Woodbury Lodge No. 11. More on that later... (Maurada & Stewart, 1928)
The Library Company of Philadelphia was founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin as a subscription library supported by its shareholders, as it is to this day.

James Davenport (Ebenezer, Thomas), born Dorchester, March 1,1693; administration on his estate granted June 13, 1759 ; m. first, Sept. 30, 1715, Grace, dau. of Onesephorus Tileston, of Dorchester. She died Oct. 24, 1721, let, 27. He m. second, May 3,1722, Sarah (b. July 9, 1699), dau. of Josiah and sister of Benjamin Franklin. She d. May 23, 1731, set. 32. He m. third, Nov. 12, 1731, Mary Walker, of Portsmouth. He was an innkeeper and baker in Boston; was of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Co.; appointed coroner, Jan. 7, 1741. His children, said by son John to have been twenty-two, all born in Boston, were: Sarah, b. Oct. 10, 1716; d. Dec. 6, 1716. William, b. Oct. 19, 1717; d. Sept. 2, 1773; m. April 3, 1740, Sarah, dau. of Moses Gerrish, of Newburyport, where he settled, and where most of his Davenport descendants live.Sarah, b. Jan. 2, 1719; m. March 6, 1738, Samuel Bowls, apothecary, of Boston. Elizabeth, b. March 8, 1723; d. March 15, 1809; m. first, Joseph Chapman; m. second, Col. Joseph Ingersols, from Falmouth, pub. Oct. 12, 1789. Dorcas, b. Aug. 26, 1724; m. May 7, 1747, Anthony Stickney. See history of Stickney family. Jliev, b. March 7, 1725; m. March 13,1745, John Rogers, of Boston, son of Ichabod. She had John and Anna. Josiah, h. Dec. 18, 1727; pub. June 29, 1749, to Sarah Billings, of Boston. Shed, in Philadelphia, April 1, 1751, aat. 23, ana was buried side of Dr. Benj. Franklin. He m. second, Dec. 13, 1751, Anna Annis, at Philadelphia. His son, Judge Franklin Davenport, of Woodbury, N. J., was U. S. Senator, 1798-9. Abiah, b. Oct. 2, 1729 ; pub. June 20, 1751, to John Griffith, Jr., of Portsmouth. Eleazer, h. Sept. 21, 1732. Lucy, b. Nov. 17, 1733; pub. March 27, 1745, to John Doane, of Boston. James, b. June 12, 1735. Rebecca, b. May 23, 1737; pub. June 4, 1755, to John Tucker. Ann, b. May 18, 1739. George, b. Dec. 9, 1740. Addington. b. March 17, 1742; d. May 27, 1743. Esther, b. April 19, 1744 ; d. March 18, 1801; pub. April 13, 1762, to Daniel Crosby, of Boston. Jane, b. Dec. 16, 1745; pub. Jan. 10, 1768, to Reuben Ingram. Mary, b. June 3, 1747. Addinoton, b. Feb. 6, 1749; d. June 24, 1821, Boston; m. June 16, 1805, widow Mary Barron, who d. Nov. 25, 1854, set. 90. She ne'e Melntire, of Salem, had m. first, William Brock, and m. second, William Barron. John, b. Aug. 4, 1752; d. Portsmouth, N. H., March 28, 1842. He ui. first, Elizabeth Hull, of Portsmouth; m. second, widow Elizabeth Welch, nee Pendexter, June 21, 1780; m. third, Sally Bradley, of Haverhill. His Davenport descendants in Haverhill and New York city.

Photo of Elizabeth Philbrick From Epsom NH

Epsom History
Elizabeth (Eliza) B. Philbrick married Levi Cass in Allenstown, January 27, 1848. She was the daughter of Simeon and Olive W. (Bickford) Philbrick. Together they had 13 children: Eugene, Elva, Filmore, Albert S., Eliza, George P., Etta May, John Tennant, Hattie E., Eddie P., Clara Olive and Fred. T. Cass. She gave an address at an old home day celebration relating her memories of the old meetinghouse on Center Hill. Her remarks can be read HERE.
She died January 28, 1908, her husband, Levi Cass, died Apr. 9, 1894. Both buried in the New Rye Cemetery.

Joseph L. Levis, Olympic Fencer from Dorchester Historical Society

Joseph L. Levis, Olympic fencer who loved to dance died in Brighton, May 20, 2005 at the age of 99. His obituary appeared in the Boston Globe on Saturday, June 11, 2005. Mr. Levis represented the United State in three Olympic Games and became a ballroom dancing champion in his 80s and 90s. While Mr. Levis won many national fencing championships, his biggest accomplishment was winning the silver medal at the 1932 Olympics in men’s foil fencing. It is still, as of 2005, the highest record in men’s or women’s foil in Olympic history for a US fencer.
Joseph on left 1932 Olympic Games
The son of Italian immigrants, Mr. Levis was born and grew up in the North End, where he worked part time in a butcher shop to help his family. He graduated from Boston English High School in 1922 and from MIT in 1926 with a degree in civil engineering.
Mr. Levis learned the basics of fencing from his father. When he arrived at MIT, he was chosen captain of the fencing team and won three intercollegiate championships. He was adept in the use of saber and epee in fencing, but favored the foil.
After graduating, Mr.Levis joined the Freeport Marble and Tile Co. of Dorchester, founded by his father in the mid-1920s. He retired in 1985 as its principal owner and CEO.
Between 1927 and 1936, Mr. Levis won eight national foil titles and one three-weapon title of the Amateur Fencers League of America, now the US Fencing Association.

In the 1930s, Mr. Levis sent to Havana to compete in an exhibit match against gold-medal Olympian Ramon Fonst. While in Cuba, he met Yvonne Rodriguez. They married in 1939 in New York, where Mr. Levis was living at the time.
In 1937 he retired from competition, and two years later he took a job as fencing coach at MIT. Construction work was down during the Depression, and he needed another paying job to supplement his income from the tile company. He stayed at MIT for 10 years.
Mr. Levis missed fencing competition and in 1949, he applied for reinstatement of his amateur status. It wasn’t granted until 1954. On his first attempt at competing again, after a 17 year retirement, he came back and won his eighth and last national foil championship.

Joe Levis wins 1954 National Championship title after 17 years of retirement. Congratulating Levis are:  Larry Dargie (Boston University Coach), Edo Marion (Harvard University Coach), and Silvio Vitali (MIT Coach).
After Mr. Levis gave up fencing, he began competing in golf and ballroom dancing. About 20 years ago, Mr. Levis and his wife started lessons at the Dan Radler and Suzanne Hamby Ballroom Dance Studios in Watertown and Southborough.
Mr. Levis only stopped dancing a year ago, after his wife’s death. He leaves son Robert L. Levis of Miami, son Christopher J. Levis of West Roxbury and two grandchildren. Burial was in Mount Calvary Cemetery in Hyde Park.
by Earl Taylor Dorchester Historical Society

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Summer Salon: Trent England Readings on Friday, July 26 at 5:30 p.m.

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BackPorch2012

Summer Salon Series
2013
Fridays at 5:30 p.m.
Trent England -- Readings from his play, Our Home in the Country
Friday, July 26 at 5:30 p.m.    
 
Trent England is a published short-story writer and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His play Notice received its first staged reading in May, and this is the first public reading of Our Home in the Country. He lives in Salem with his wife Denise.

This Salon will be held in our air-conditioned Reading Room. 
  

 About the Salon Series

The concept of the salon emerged in 17th-century France and quickly became popular throughout Europe.  These gatherings of like-minded people were meant to refine tastes and knowledge through the exchange of talents, news, and ideas.  (And, we hasten to add, a few were rife with irony, romance, and black humor!)  
 
Salons are held rain or shine: In cases of inclement weather, or if the presenter requires electricity for their presentation, we meet in the Athenæum's Reading Room.
No tickets or reservations are required, but reserving helps us plan for seating and refreshments.    
Join us to keep cultural discourse alive and well in the twenty-first century!

For more information about this series, see www.salemathenaeum.net or contact Jean Marie Procious at 978-744-2540 or info@salemathenaeum.net.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

A fashion war in the Colonies

From my Newburyport Daily News article A fashion war in the Colonies


Our Puritan ancestors’ actions reveal that human nature is no different today. In the Bay Colony, leaders and church officials forged a campaign of rigid scrutiny, censoring the lifestyle and habits of everyday citizens. Simplicity in dress was the law, but like any other infringement on personal liberties carried out in the name of God, these sanctions would not go down without a struggle. A fashion war raged, and it seems that the Legislature could no more ban fashion plates than it could heretics or tipplers.

The men of the cloth pleaded to Governor Winthrop to repress “men of leisure and power” who emulated London fashions, saturating the pure terrain. These “horrids of vanity” caused “alarm and disgust among the pious families.” To remedy this, “The Simple Cobler of Aggawam” (Rev. Ward) targeted the colony’s ladies, stating they had “no true grace or valuable virtue” if they “disfigure themselves with such exotic garbs” and are no better than “French flirts.”



The holy rollers used sermons to blame these so-called “haughty women” for wars and bad harvest. The magistrates began enforcing sumptuary laws that prevented extravagance by limiting clothing expenditures. “Immodest fashions” with lace, silver and gold thread and other “items of adornment” that had “little use or benefit, but to the nourishment of pride,” were strictly forbidden, as were “slashed apparel, great sleeves, great boots, ribbon, and double ruffs.” Despite a fashion boycott, garments of splendor and other wearable loot poured in — historical records show that our ancestors in and around the Port were quite stylish.

The most notorious of the Vanity Fair, Madame Rebecka Symonds, widow of Deputy Governor Samuel Symonds, was always starving for the newest trends, and she had the means and the connections to stock her trunks. Family letters indicate her appetite for finery. Her son, John Hall, a wealthy London merchant, dutifully supplied her with the latest and most glamorous garb. Apparently, Madame was more worried about catching the plague than tweaking the noses of local lawmen. Her luxury booty arrived with correspondence from Hall assuring her that he purchased the “finery himself, in safe shops, from reliable dealers, and kept all for a month in his own home where none had been infected.” Though her garments carried no contagious germs, Madame was surely dressed to kill that season.

Judge Samuel Sewall, on the prowl for a wife, set his sights on Martha Ruggles and wrote to her brother Thomas Woodbridge, noting fond memories of her great style: I remember when I was going from school at Newbury, I sometimes met Mary, at the end of Mrs. Noyes’s Lane, coming from their School at Chandler’s Lane, in Hanging Sleeves ... “ Martha was not impressed — this fellow was never going to get under her sleeves. After she rejected his two proposals, he moved on to woo Widow Gibbs.

While the genteel usually got a minor shunning for their extravagance, for Colonists with a yearly income of less than 200 pounds, wearing the style of polite society was criminal. To give falsehood of your station in the Puritan Republic was against God’s law. The General Court announced their “utter detestation and dislike” that “over-proud commoners” of “mean condition, education and callings should take upon them the garb of gentlemen.”

Infractions resulted in punishment and fines. Tailors were forbidden from making garments “contrary to the mind and order of the Governors,” and if the grand jurors failed to bring indictments against guilty persons, the courts would impose fines on them. In 1652, Jonas Fairbanks and Robert Edwards were charged for wearing “great boots,” a cavalier fashion of excessive leather. John Chubb was admonished for “excess in apparel, beyond that of a man of his degree.” Additional records from the Quarterly Courts of 1653 regarding Newbury residents include:

Wife(s) of John Hutchings, Thomas Harris, Thomas Wayte and Edward Browne, presented for wearing a silk hood, all discharged testimony being brought up above the ordinary rank and upon proof of education.

Wife(s) of Nicholas Noyes and Hugh March, John Whipple presented for silk hood and scarves, but discharged for being worth 200 pounds.

Wife(s) of William Chandlour and Joseph Swett’s fined ten shillings for wearing a silk hood. Agnes, wife of Deacon Knight, presented for wearing a silk hood, discharged, her husband being worth above 200. (This troubled the good deacon exceedingly, and induced him to solicit Mr. Rawson to send a letter to one of the magistrates at Salem.)

Bridget Bishop, who was the first of the accused to be executed as a witch in Salem, may be the last infamous mention of illicit fashion in Puritan New England. Her famous “scarlet paragon bodice” did not directly cause her death, but it certainly helped lure the judgmental Puritan hordes to her doorstep. Many like Bishop just would not conform, nor be controlled — it is simply not New England’s style!

A big thank-you to historian Richard Trask for outfitting the material on the way we wore!

Friday, July 19, 2013

Topsfield Resident: John Silsbee Lawrence & His Friendship with F.D.R.

Village Reporter Newspaper
 December 3, 2008


Part 3 by Elizabeth Coughlin,

Many residents of Topsfield know John Silsbee Lawrence’s house (located at 76 Campmeeting Road) but they don’t know who he was.  In fact, recently the Village Reporter had reported in an October 22 article that he was in the leather business, when actually it was cotton and textile.  Although his vast wealth made him an intriguing man, it was his “famous friends” that made him even more interesting.
            
John was born in Nahant in 1878 and first appeared in Topsfield in 1905 when he began buying land from several people- Wellington Donaldson, Adeline J. Perkins, Arthur F. Perkins, Mary T. Robinson, David S. Clarke and Margaret Y. Averill.  After his marriage to Emma Atherton in 1907, he began building his Topsfield summer house known as “Gravelly Brook Farm” in 1908.
             
John Lawrence was born into a very wealthy and privileged family.  In fact his great grandfather, Amos Lawrence was at one time one of the wealthiest men in America and a great philanthropist.  The family business called Lawrence and Co., was a cotton and textile business, a business John was a partner in. 
             
In 1894, while attending Groton Academy (later changed to Lawrence Academy- after John’s Grandfather) he met a very important and life long friend, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (F.D.R.).  Letters that they wrote to each other over the years are available at the F.D.R. Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park New York.  The letters reveal a dear old friendship, their sense of humor, a shared passion for boating and of course politics.
             
During WWI, John was an aide of Herbert Hoover in food and relief work.  Here is part of a letter written May 1, 1923, from John S. Lawrence to Franklin Delano Roosevelt- “I heard of you in Washington.  Hoover said he had had a nice talk with you, admired your courage and method of thought, although he said he didn’t always thoroughly agree with you.”
             
On March 4, 1933 John sent a telegram to F.D.R. that read, “With the Character of a Lincoln and the timing of a Coolidge your shot has gone around the world lead on New England is behind you,” John S. Lawrence.
             
What is so remarkable about this telegram is the date it was sent, Saturday, March 4, 1933.  This was the day of F.D.R.’s inaugural speech that contained his famous quote, “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
             
Besides politics they had a shared passion for boats.  That is probably why in 1923 they purchased a houseboat together called the Larooco, for Lawrence-Roosevelt Company.  F.D.R. used it mostly during the winter months to help with his poliomyelitis (polio).  Then in September of 1926 it was destroyed by a hurricane, although from the letters that were left it was evident that they both were ready to sell.
             
The letters that pertained to the Larooco, were made into a book written by Donald S. Carmichael: An introduction to the log of the Larooco: being chiefly the correspondence of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John S. Lawrence.  This rare book, of mostly correspondence letters between the two friends, can only be viewed at a few libraries such as the F.D.R. Presidential Library and Harvard.  Both F.D.R. and John were graduates from Harvard, John in 1901 and F.D.R. in 1904. 
             
John had a few other famous friends.  In 1924 he entertained the Prince of Wales at his Topsfield home.  Author, Joseph Garland, wrote about this visit in his book The North Shore.
           
 In 1937, his wife Emma Atherton passed away and in 1940 he married Helene Kellogg.
Then, in 1942, John Lawrence sold “Gravelly Brook Farm” to the Pym family and moved to Manchester, Massachusetts.

The Lawrence Home Today
Since 1979, the Lawrence home has been owned by Jonathan and Norma Peabody.  In September of this year, they celebrated the 100th anniversary of their home with a party.  Over 70 guests came to the event, including Jonathan’s 100 year old father Lester Peabody.  They enjoyed a written history of the home as well as a visual one.  They displayed interior and exterior photos of how the home looked when Lawrence owned it (photos that are in the custody of Historic New England).  The Peabody’s explained that part of their home, the north and south wings, are now gone.  The south wing had a ballroom, master bedroom suite and sun room.  Norma said, “John’s granddaughter told us that John took down the ballroom.” 
 
The Peabody’s maintain that the ballroom was actually part of the original plan.  Another part of the house that is missing is an entire north wing that had 7 bedrooms and 7 baths.  This part of the home was destroyed by a fire, after the Lawrence’s sold it to the Pym’s.
The work that the Peabody’s have done over the past 30 years is quite evident.  Their home has been meticulously maintained both inside and out, something John Silsbee Lawrence would be proud of.
 
Although Topsfield only knew him for 34 years, his mark in history will be felt for many years to come.



A special thank you to the Topsfield Town Librarians.  They were instrumental in finding a photocopy of An introduction to the log of the Larooco: being chiefly the correspondence of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John S. Lawrence written by Donald S. Carmichael, that is now available to read in the reference section. 

Also see several photos of inside home at this link Historic New England 

Thursday, July 18, 2013

The Visible Woman submitted by author Jo Ann Butler


Reposted from Rebel PuritAn Some women left wills; others appeared in vital records.  A few who could write left their own records.  Anne (Dudley) Bradstreet’s book of poetry was published in 1650; the first work penned by a North American woman to be published.  Mistress Bradstreet’s work was notable, and perhaps she was protected by her position.  She was the daughter of Massachusetts’ governor, and no sensible man would criticize such a woman.


The more typical attitude toward educated females is shown by Governor John Winthrop’s comment about a young woman who had “lost her reason” by “giving herself wholly to reading and writing.”  If she had not meddled in “such things as are proper for men, whose minds are stronger, she [would have] kept her wits, and might have improved them usefully and honorably in the place God had set her.”

Anne Hutchinson.jpg
Even such towering women as Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson and Mary (Barrett) Dyer left few recorded words.  The educated Mistress Hutchinson held her own meetings to discuss the sermons of Boston’s ministers.  Soon her followers nearly upended the Puritan’s government, leading to the banishment of Anne and her family, and the ouster of many other Massachusetts residents.

Mary Dyer helped bring the Quaker faith to New England.  For that she was also banished from Massachusetts, and was hanged in 1660 for defying that banishment.  But the only written works left by Mary are two letters written to the Puritan government before her hanging.  Nothing at all survives of Anne Hutchinson’s actual words, only a few brief phrases recorded during hearings preceding her banishment and excommunication.

Both Anne and Mary were remarked upon by Governor John Winthrop in his journal.  Anne and her supporters’ near-rebellion filled several pages, and Winthrop remarked upon her life in Rhode Island many times.  When Anne was cast out of the Boston church, Mary left the meeting house arm in arm with her friend, and Winthrop noted that event.  He also wrote about Mary’s miscarriage in gruesome detail – a monster borne by a woman with monstrous notions.


stocks.jpg
Thus we see that the most visible women in 17th century New England were those who got into trouble.  Even when they appear in the court records for lesser events we see their names, and sometimes we can learn quite a lot about them.

A significant portion of colonial records is filled with men and women in trouble.  Theft, adultery, social disorder, even murder were fairly frequent occurrences and women were often the criminals in question.  We might not learn a woman’s maiden name from these records, but sometimes they give her husband’s name along with information about her crime and punishment.

Herodias Long is a perfect example of how a woman can become visible.  If it weren’t for her numerous court appearances, we would know her only from a couple of land records.  In November 1664 George Gardner Jr. and his older brother Benoni were granted land in Rhode Island’s Pettaquamscutt Purchase.  That land was bounded on one side by Horad Long, but the deeds do not note that Horad was the mother of the young men, using a shortened form of her first name and her maiden surname.


When John Porter, her third domestic partner, sold land between 1671-74, Horad Porter gave her consent.  Earlier land records for her first husband, John Hicks, and second partner, George Gardner, do not mention her at all.

So, how do we know that Herodias was married to those men?  She requested a divorce from both of them.  In 1644 Harwood Hicks was separated from her abusive husband, John Hicks.  We don’t learn much about her from those records apart from her name, but twenty years later, she petitioned the government for a divorce from her second “husband,” George Gardner, saying that they were not married, and that sin was weighing on her conscience.

Puritan wedding.jpg
Perhaps looking for sympathy and support for her youngest child, Herodias gave her life history.  Using her maiden name, Horod Long said that she was married at the age of thirteen at the church of St. Faith’s-under-Paul’s in London, that the Hicks family then came to Weymouth, Massachusetts for 2 ½ years, then relocated to Newport, Rhode Island.  She noted her separation from John Hicks, then said that she had not formally married George Gardner, and that omission was weighing on her conscience.

This sort of record is the sort that genealogists and historians dream about, and lets us trace this illiterate woman through most of her life.  If not for her troubled domestic life, Herodias would have remained nearly invisible, just another name written in fading ink on ancient parchment.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

What Ghost Hunters Found in Topsfield Hangers and Symbolism by Elizabeth Coughlin Two Great Articles


The story about a haunted New England home:

From The Village Reporter Newspaper     
November 19, 2008


This photo, taken by Leigh Cummings, shows a memorial for Mary Easty that is part of the Salem Witch Trials Tercentenary Memorial (dedicated 1992) in downtown Salem. It is adjacent to the 17th century Charter Street Old burying Point.\

Recently there has been a lot of talk about “unexplainable happenings” in the East Street area of Topsfield.  As stated in an Oct. 22 Village Reporter article, the show Ghost Hunters recently aired a show about a home in that part of town that has reported alleged hauntings.
Linda McKeehan bought the home from relatives 20 years ago.
Ghost Hunters aired the show on the Topsfield “Farmhouse” on Nov. 5 on the SciFi Channel after the show's production department came to town to investigate.
The crew stayed in the house overnight using cameras that could film in the dark, as they kept all the lights off in the house.  During filming, two separate doors violently slammed shut.  Initially the front door slammed locking a crew member out of the house.  The second time, the bathroom door shut on a cameraman who was following a cast member around the house.
Another incident occurred when Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, the two stars of Ghost Hunters, knocked on a wall and asked whoever was haunting to knock back.  It did.
Perhaps the most visual finding was when a coat hanger flew across the bedroom and landed on the floor next to Jason.  Grant put the hanger back on the coat rack and once again the hanger went flying across the room and landed on the floor.
This symbolic connection was offered after the program aired by a descendant of Isaac Cummings, Leigh Cummings, who lives in Houlton, Maine.  Although he is not a believer in the “paranormal”, Leigh Cummings wrote in an email that, “The throwing down of the hanger (twice) is just far too symbolic.” 
    
Common thread

What does Isaac Cummings and the Witch Hysteria have to do with it?



The historic trail begins in 1652 when Isaac Cummings purchased 150 acres of land in Topsfield, later known as the Cummings-Hobbs-Bell place.  The acreage he bought would have included Linda’s home on East Street as well as others.

During the “Witch Hysteria” of the late 1600s, history tells us three local women were hanged as witches, Sarah Wilds, Elizabeth How, and Mary Towne Easty.



Both Elizabeth How and Mary Towne Easty, relate back to the Cummings Family.

The decision to convict Elizabeth How as a witch and sentence her to death was the result of the testimony of Isaac Cummings (2nd generation aged about 60), his wife Mary Andrews, their son Isaac Cummings Jr and Mary’s brother Thomas Andrews of Boxford, as well as others.  They testified that because they had refused to lend one of the How daughters their mare, it mysteriously became horribly abused one night later.  The mare ends up dying and the Cummings barn narrowly escapes a fire.  Elizabeth How (the wife of James How Jr) was hanged on Gallows hill in Salem on Tuesday, July 19th, 1692.

The second local Witch that was hanged and related to the Cummings Family is Mary Towne Easty.  Her niece (through her brother Joseph) married John Cummings in 1688 and two of Mary’s granddaughters, Abigail and Sarah, married Cummings men, both named Joseph (1712 & 1714).  Tragically in 1729, on Christmas Eve, Joseph died of smallpox and 17 days later his wife Abigail succumbed to the same disease, leaving five orphaned children.

It is also important to note Mary Easty’s sister Rebecca Nurse was also hanged as a witch and another sister, Sarah Towne Cloyes was charged but never tried.  In January, 1693 the grand jury dismissed the charge against Sarah.




Mary Towne Easty, who is called “Mary Easty, the self-forgetful” is known for a remarkable second petition she wrote in prison, awaiting her execution.  According to The Historical Collections of the Topsfield Historical Society, volume 13, written by Mrs. Abbie Peterson Towne and Miss Marietta Clarke, “This petition stands by itself and is probably the most remarkable petition in the English language.”

In part it reads  “I Petition to your honours not for my own life for J know J must die and my appointed time is sett but the Lord he knowes it is that if it be possible no more Jnnocent blood may be shed…”

Mary Towne Easty was executed on September 22, 1692 on Gallows hill in Salem.


At the end of Ghost Hunters both Grant and Jason reassured Linda that the “paranormal” things going in the house were nothing to be afraid of.  In their opinion the “ghost” was just trying to communicate with her. 

Although neither Mary Towne Easty nor Elizabeth Howe lived in the house that was featured on Ghost Hunters, it is important to remember the history of the land.  Some viewers said the hanger was just that, a symbolic reminder of the “Witch Hysteria” and the lessons to be learned from it.

By the way, both Lucille Ball and author E.E. Cummings, e.g., are descended from Isaac and Mary Andrews Cummings.  There is a cemetery in Topsfield, located on private property, that the Topsfield History book (History of Topsfield, George Dow) tells us holds over 100 souls from the Cummings-Lamson-Smith Families.  The Smiths are direct ancestors of Joseph Smith, Mormon Leader.


Photographs are the sole copyright of ©Elizabeth A. Coughlin.  Any questions please email beth@eacphoto.com


Kris Williams (seated on left) and President of the Topsfield Historical Society Norm Isler during their taped interview for the show "Ghost Hunters" to air sometime this Fall on a Wednesday night at 9 pm on the Sci Fi Channel. photo by Elizabeth Coughlin

From The Village Reporter October 22, 2008 This was the first article of 3

When Linda McKeehan bought her Topsfield home from relatives twenty years ago she had been warned not to buy it and at the time she did not know why, however, now she does.
For the last twenty years Linda and her three daughters have been experiencing unexplainable happenings in their home. They have seen lights turn on and off, doors shut on their own, sounds of someone walking up and down the hallway, coins dropping, children laughing, singing, banging, balls bouncing, objects moving, and the feeling that someone is watching. Most of these unexplainable events occurred while someone was alone in the house and usually at night. Linda explains, 'The most common thing is when someone is coming to the house expecting nobody to be here because they are checking on my home while I am away, and instead they hear laughing, singing and music."
Linda also talks about another incident where friends have driven up to the house expecting her not to be there and all the lights are on in the home.
For years her daughters have felt it too. One daughter explains, "I'll feel like someone is in the room. Sometimes the TV will go on by itself and lights too."
Linda, however does not always feel safe in her home. She explains, "Some nights I feel afraid, and two of my daughters will not sleep here alone over night."
All of these things are what helped lead up to Linda contacting the show Ghost Hunters.
A co-worker of Linda's had told her she should send her story to the show Ghost Hunters. A reality based show that appears on the SciFi channel on Wednesday nights at 9pm. According to the SciFi channel website, "This one-hour weekly reality show from the creator/executive producer of American Chopper follows a group of real-life paranormal researchers as they investigate hauntings throughout the country."
After several months of waiting and then some phone calls back and forth it finally came to be. On Friday October 3rd the team of investigators along with the two celebrities who lead the investigation, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, showed up at the McKeehan house to film the Ghost Hunters show. They filmed all night Friday and Saturday night until midnight. Linda says, "They really did a great job, they were fantastic. They were very sincere about what they were doing."
What they found during taping will have to wait until the show airs, sometime this fall, but Linda confirms that they did find things. In fact at one point the team got locked out of the house by a door that frequently shuts on its own locking people out of the house.
Perhaps the most interesting part of Linda's story may have come from looking into the history of the East Street area of Topsfield.
 

What history tells us
Linda does know some historical facts about her home from her relatives and neighbors. Her house was in fact a cottage house that was part of the working farm her step-father's family, the Pym family, had bought. The Pym family bought the entire farm, including the cottage, from Mr. John Lawrence sometime after 1937. Mr. Lawrence was a wealthy leather maker who was known to have entertained the Prince of Wales at his home. He had bought the property from the Robinson Family who owned 70 or more acres in that area of town. In the 1600's there was also a mill in that part of town, known as the Hobbs Mill, which was owned by the Hobbs Family.
Although all these historical facts are fascinating they still do not explain the haunted happenings occurring in Linda's home. That is where Norm Isler comes into the picture.
Norm Isler is the President of the Topsfield Historical Society. He was asked to be interviewed for the show Ghost Hunters in order to shed some light on the history of the East Street area of Topsfield.
What Norm explained was that houses back then did not have street numbers so it is difficult to know exactly where someone lived. However the Topsfield Historical Society has kept excellent records through the years. Some of these records can be found at the Topsfield Library in the reference section. Topsfield Historical Collections , start at Volume I and go up to volume 33 (1982). In the Topsfield Historical Collections Volume III, 1897, a Miss Marietta Clarke wrote this, "they do say that this last Hobbs House is haunted. It is a fact that a family left the house on account of the unexplainable noises heard therein. Doors opened noiselessly, mysterious footsteps were heard crossing some of the rooms. At times a fearful clamor broke out in the old blacksmith shop and all the spinning wheels were set a whirling."
What is fascinating about the writings of Miss Marietta Clarke from over 100 years ago is that it sounds a lot like what Linda and her family have been experiencing today. Although it may seem tragic not to be able to know which house belonged to whom, one can't help but find Ms. Clarke's historical document intriguing, perhaps even validating.

Sometimes...understanding the past helps to release the mysteries of today.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Where the Gold Is: Original Bonesman's Family Helped Found Yale--Skull & Bones

Inside Skull and Bones Rare photos of the interior of Yale’s most storied “tomb.” New York Times

From Where the Gold Is: Original Bonesman's Family Helped Found Yale
The story of Yale, as told by Edwin Oviatt, in The beginnings of Yale (1701-1726), published in 1916, began in England where John Davenport, John Cotton, Thomas Mather and Theophilus Eaton lived in fear of their lives if they continued to practice the religious faith they shared. The four men would meet up once again in "the new world" in 1637 at Massachusetts Bay Colony, to which Davenport had fled into the arms of his old friends. There Harvard College would be founded, which remained the only upper level educational institution until the establishment of Yale in 1701.
It is the purpose of this post to determine who were the men most responsible in those early days for creating the university now known as Yale. Eventually, we will also connect those original founders to the secret society known as Skull and Bones.
Rev. John Davenport soon became dissatisfied in the Puritan colony in Massachusetts and desired to dominate his own group, which he set up the following year at New Haven on land acquired from some friendly Indians.
Rev. Davenport
It was not long, however, until Davenport's will to control others with his own philosophy of how the colony should be run caused several of those he had brought with him, including Thomas Hooker, to move out and establish a group at Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield in 1639. Davenport's desire to adopt the church-state ideal of society nevertheless had the support of Theophilus Eaton, who was made governor of the colony at New Haven. Rev. Samuel Eaton, brother of Theophilus, disagreed and moved with those like Hooker who favored a less restrictive society and allowed non-church members to vote.

The Eaton/Yale Family: Rev. Theophilus Eaton, before leaving England, had married the widow of David Yale and brought the children of that marriage--David, Thomas, and Anne Yale--with him to New Haven. For a time in New Haven Davenport had recruited the services of an eminent scholar and teacher, Ezekiel Cheever, whose behavior was called out for impiety, and he departed the theocratic colony in 1647, ending up at Harvard, where he taught Cotton Mather. It would take John Davenport two long decades of independence from all outside help to realize that his vision would not be realized in his lifetime without some measure of outside assistance.

Hopkins
Davenport, desperate at that point, wrote a letter to an old friend who had departed the New Haven colony much earlier--Edward Hopkins--who had married a stepdaughter of Theophilus Eaton, his wife's daughter from her marriage to the late David Yale. Mrs. Eaton, like Cheever, had been reprimanded by Davenport, resulting in her departure with her family to the less severe Colony of Connecticut. They had first joined Hooker's group at Hartford, and then, once Oliver Cromwell stabilized the religious situation in England, Hopkins had gone back to England with his family in 1653. Davenport begged for financial help from his former colonist and was promised help in return.
A year after the promise was made, Hopkins died unexpectedly, and when his will was read, Davenport discovered Hopkins had divided his educational bequest, for a grammar school and college, between the New Haven sect and that of Hooker's more liberal group. Davenport turned the trust documents over to his colony in 1660, which established Hopkins Grammar School, although the funds for its maintenance would be tied up for several more years.
Hopkins' death had unfortunately occurred during the same year Cromwell was deposed and King Charles returned to the throne in England. Davenport's behavior was contrary to the King's interest, while Governor Winthrop of Connecticut, representing the other three confederated towns within the colony, had sought protection of their charters from the new king. The new charter signed by the king included the New Haven territory, without recognizing it claim as an independently governed member of the confederation of Connecticut.


Hooker
By 1663, Davenport had not changed his vision, but most of those within his New Haven colony were unhappy with the theocracy and desired more freedom. Davenport refused to give up control until 1665, when New Haven became part of the Connecticut Colony. By this time Thomas Hooker, who favored universal suffrage, had died. Governor John Winthrop, less democratically inclined than Hooker had been, still favored restricting voting to church members. Over the next two decades, that view declined until in 1692 the qualification for the vote became property ownership rather than church membership, thus switching from a religious to a financial oligarchy.The Russell Family Connection: Noadiah Russell (born in 1659) was one of perhaps thirty New Haven lads who went on to attend Harvard College after matriculation from the Hopkins Grammar School during these years. He was a graduate of the 1681 class at Harvard along with Samuel Russel--a minister called to teach at the Hopkins school but who left for Branford before 1684, the year James Pierpont, another man from Harvard's 1681 class, arrived in New Haven. Ten years later he married John Davenport's granddaughter Abigail, who died within three months of their marriage, but his second marriage to Sarah Haynes would not occur until 1694 and last only two years, producing one daughter, Abigail, who married Rev. Joseph Noyes of New Haven.

Pierpont married for the last time in 1698, the granddaughter of Thomas Hooker, one of the original American settlers at at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620, who had removed from there to establish Connecticut's first democratic colony in Hartford. It was 1701 before the descendants of those who had received the divided trust from Edward Hopkins were amenable to get together once again in Old Saybrook to discuss founding a "collegiate school" they had desired for so long. The details are set out as they then occurred, or were conjectured to have occurred, by Oviatt in his book mentioned above, which took him almost 200 pages to reach his starting point of 1701.


Rev. James Pierpont
The First Collegiate School: The original location of the school would be Killingworth, a site just east of the center of a triangle drawn with Middletown at its apex, Saybrook on the east and New haven its western point. It would remain there until the death of Abraham Pierson, the first rector, in 1707. It then moved to Milford when Rev. Samuel Andrew (former Harvard Tutor of the men from the class of 1681) accepted the post of rector on a temporary basis.In 1713 Sir Joseph Noyes (married to Pierpont's daughter Abigail from his second marriage) and Rev. William Russell "became the mainstay of the struggling school," until the post of Rector was awarded to William upon his marriage to Pierpont's daughter Mary in 1719, when he moved back to New Haven from Middletown. A graduate of the 1714 class tutored by Russell was Benjamin Lord, whose descendants would later be extremely important at Yale.
But by the time of Pierpont's death in 1714, the financial plight of the young college was suffering to such an extent he had written off to England in 1711 for help from a Colonial agent named Jeremiah Dummer. It was Dummer from whom Elihu Hale--whose ancestry connects him to Connecticut through Eaton, as described above--learned of the need for a life rope. Elihu was the son of David Yale, whose stepfather Theophilus Eaton, had been a close friend of John Davenport. After leaving the New Haven colony, David Yale had married and lived for a time in Boston, where Elihu was born, then returned to England and became a merchant in Wrexham in northeast England. Elihu eventually joined the East India Company in 1671, remaining in Madras for 27 years. While there he married Catherine Hynmer, a wealthy widow with four children, who gave him three daughters and a son, David Yale, who died and was buried in Madras in 1688.



Elihu Yale
We are told by author Oviatt:
 




From Grisly ‘Skull And Bones’ Relic Is Set To Be Auctioned Off By Christie’s
From Christie's Auction fetched 2,125 Skull and Bones Yearbook, 322, VI., c. 1869 Photographer unknown 


From Blog Geronimo and skull and bones society