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Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Captain Roland Folger Coffin's Funeral

                                                  
                                                    Grave: From Prospect Hill Cemetery 


                                          From the New York Times July 21 1888


Captain Coffin---journalist, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., March 8. 1826. He spent his youth at Nantucket, Mass., and became a sailor. He was captain of the ship Senator, 1850-60, and in the latter year joined the U.S. navy as acting master, serving in the North Atlantic blockading squadron. 1861-63. In 1869 he published .1n Old Sailor's Yarns. He became a reporter of marine news and yachting and was a contributor to the daily New York journals. He published Straws (1859); The America's Cup: How it was Won by the Yacht America in 1851 and has Since been Defended (1885); History of American Yachting (1886). He died on Shelter island. Suffolk county, N.Y.. July 17, 1888 See More "Proceedings of the Nantucket Historical Association," Volumes 21-25

From  Outing: Sport, Adventure, Travel, Fiction, Volume 12
As we go to press, we learn with profound sorrow of the death of Capt. Roland Folger Coffin, our highly esteemed yachting editor. Captain Coffin died in harness; he was at the time fulfilling his duties as yachting reporter to the World and Outing.

Alas ! the pen of Captain Coffin lies silent now. Little did we think then that the articles he brought us, three days before the end came, would be the last precious gifts of this prolific marine writer, and that OUTING inherited in these contributions the most mature thought of Roland Folger Coffin.
In this and the remaining numbers of this year's OUTING these valuable articles will appear, and no one who ever " broke the unknown sea " and trusted his life "to the licentious winds" will pass these pages by. The closing article will be enriched by a short but exhaustive sketch of Captain Cofiin-a man who was born near the sea and.....


 July 18, 1888 New York Times


Grave Lot 136  Captain Roland Folger Coffin. March 8, 1826 - July 17, 1888.
Roland was the son of Hezediah Coffin and Sally Bunker Coffin. He married Elizabeth Starbuck the daughter of Captain Obed Starbuck. He was master of the ship Senator. During the Civil War, he served in the U.S. Navy in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. He was a reporter for The New York World and a yachting reporter for the sports journal Outing. Captain Coffin was the author of  An Old Sailor's Yarns published by Funk and Wagnells, New York in 1884 and The America's Cup. How It Was Won By The Yacht America In 1851 And Has Been Since Defended published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York in 1885. In the preface of the later book ,Captain Coffin writes of his ambition:
"Retire to Nantucket, and become a happy owner of a twenty-foot cat-boat, the fastest in the harbor".
Captain Roland Coffin's co-workers at The New York World purchased his memorial at Prospect Hill as a tribute to their departed friend.

Strange & Curious Punishments Puritan Style

From New York Times Article October 17, 1886 And Archival History, Court Documents and Genealogy








After some research on the names and events I am posting what I have found from sources from the archives.

From Boston Police History
 
1639---Edward Palmer was employed to build stocks (a place in which to set criminals for punishment); when completed, he presented his bill for his services. The bill was thought to be exorbitant, and Edward Palmer got placed in his own stocks and was fined five pounds.


From Prospect: Or, View of the Moral World, Volume 1 By Elihu Palmer

Extracts from the Ancient Records of Massachusetts. 
Edward Palmer, for his extortion in taking two pounds ; thirteen shillings and four penee, for the wood work of Boston stocks, is fined four pounds, and ordered to be set one hour in the flocks.

From Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 56, Number 108, 25 December 1886 — PUNISHING SCOLDS. [ARTICLE]




From Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony By George Francis Dow

Her name was Mary Oliver and her criminal record begins in June, 1638. Governor Winthrop relates: "Amongst the rest, there was a woman in Salem, one Oliver, his wife, who had suffered somewhat in England by refusing to bow at the name of Jesus, though otherwise she was conformable to all their orders. She was (for ability of speech, and appearance of zeal and devotion) far before Mrs Hutchinson, and so the fitter instrument to have done hurt, but that she was poor and had little acquaintance. She took offense at this, that she might not be admitted to the Lord's supper without giving public satisfaction to the church of her faith, etc., and covenanting or professing to walk with them according to the rule of the gospel; so as upon the sacrament day she openly called for it, stood to plead her right, though she were denied; and would not forbear, before the magistrate, Mr. Endecott, did threaten to send the constable to put her forth. This woman was brought to the Court for disturbing the peace in the church, etc., and there she gave such peremptory answers, as she was committed till she should find sureties for her good behavior. After she had been in prison three or four days, she made means to the Governor and submitted herself, and acknowledged her fault in disturbing the church; whereupon he took her husband's bond for her good behavior, and discharged her out of prison. But he found, after, that she still held her former opinions, which were very dangerous, as, (I) that the church is the head of the people, both magistrates and ministers, met together and that these have power to ordain ministers, etc. II That all that dwell in the same town, and will profess their faith in Christ Jesus, ought to be received to the sacraments there; and that she was persuaded that, if Paul were at Salem, he would call all the inhabitants there saints. (III) That excommunication is no other but when Christians withdraw private communion from one that hath offended." September 24, 1639, this Mary Oliver was sentenced to prison in Boston indefinitely for her speeches at the arrival of newcomers. She was to be taken by the constables of Salem and Lynn to the prison in Boston. Her husband Thomas Oliver was bound in £20 for his wife's appearance at the next court in Boston.


Governor Winthrop continues: "About five years after, this woman was adjudged to be whipped for reproaching the magistrates. She stood without tying, and bore her punishment with a masculine spirit, glorying in her suffering. But after (when she came to consider the reproach, which would stick by her, etc.) she was much dejected about it. She had a cleft stick put on her tongue half an hour for reproaching the elders."
March 2, 1647-8, Mary Oliver was fined for working on the Sabbath day in time of public exercise; also for abusing Capt. Hathorne, uttering divers mutinous speeches, and denying the morality of the Sabbath. She was sentenced to sit in the stocks one hour next lecture day, if the weather be moderate; also for saying "You in New England are thieves and Robbers" and for saying to Mr. Gutch that she hoped to tear his flesh in pieces and all such as he was. For this she was bound to good behavior, and refusing to give bond was sent to Boston jail, and if she remained in the court's jurisdiction was to answer to further complaints at the next Salem Court.
It appears from depositions that she went to Robert Gutch's house in such gladness of spirit that he couldn't understand it, and she said to some there, not members, "Lift up your heads, your redemption draweth near," and when reminded what she already had been punished for, she said that she came out of that with a scarf and a ring.
November 15, 1648, Mary Oliver for living from her husband, was ordered to go to him before the next court, and in December she brought suit against John Robinson for false imprisonment, taking her in a violent manner and putting her in the stocks. She recovered a judgment of 10s. damages. The following February Mary Oliver was again presented at Court for living from her husband, and in July, having been ordered to go to her husband in England by the next ship, she was further enjoyed to go by the next opportunity on penalty of 20 li.
November 13, 1649, Mary Oliver was presented for stealing goats, and a month later she was presented for speaking against the Governor, saying that he was unjust, corrupt and a wretch, and that he made her pay for stealing two goats when there was no proof in the world of it. She was sentenced to be whipped next lecture day at Salem, if the weather be moderate, not exceeding twenty stripes. Capt. William Hathorne and Mr. Emanuel Downingwere to see the sentence executed. At the same court George Ropes complained that Mary Oliver kept away a spade of his and she was fined 5s.
February 28, 1649-50, Mary Oliver thus far had escaped the second whipping, for at her request Mr. Batter asked that her sentence be respited, which the Court granted "if she doe go into the Bay with Joseph Hardy this day or when he goeth next into the Bay with his vessell" otherwise she was to be called forth by Mr. Downing and Capt. Hathorne and be punished. If she returned, the punishment was to hold good.
The next day Mary Oliver's fine was remitted to the end that she use it in transporting herself and children out of this jurisdiction within three weeks. And there ended her turbulent career in the town of Salem, so far as the Court records show.


From The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts Author: Henry M. Brooks

We here record a curious affair which took place in the State of Georgia in the year 1811. At the Superior Court at Milledgeville a Mrs. Palmer, who, the account states, "seems to have been rather glib of the tongue, was indicted, tried, convicted, and, in pursuance of the sentence of the Court, was punished by being publicly ducked in the Oconee River for—scolding." This, we are told, was the first instance of the kind that had ever occurred in that State, and "numerous spectators attended the execution of the sentence." A paper copying this account says that the "crime is old, but the punishment is new," and that "in the good old days of our Ancestors, when an unfortunate woman was accused of Witchcraft she was tied neck and heels and thrown into a pond of Water: if she drowned, it was agreed that she was no witch; if she swam, she was immediately tied to a stake and burnt alive. But who ever heard that our pious ancestors ducked women for scolding?" This writer is much mistaken; for it is well known that in England (and perhaps in this country in early times) the "ducking-stool" was resorted to for punishing "scolds." This was before the days of "women's rights," for there is no record of any man having been punished in this way.

For More see Marquis Eaton's essay  Punitive Pain and Humiliation
 

In the early seventeenth century, Boston's Roger Scott was picked up for "repeated sleeping on the Lord's Day" and sentenced to be severely whipped for "striking the person who waked him from his godless slumber."

From The Sabbath in Puritan New England: Chapter 6  The Tithingman and the Sleepers


Another over-watchful Newbury "awakener" rapped on the head a nodding man who protested indignantly that he was wide-awake, and was only bowing in solemn assent and approval of the minister's arguments. Roger Scott, of Lynn, in 1643 struck the tithingman who thus roughly and suddenly wakened him; and poor sleepy and bewildered Roger, who is branded through all time as "a common sleeper at the publick exercise," was, for this most naturally resentful act, but also most shockingly grave offense, soundly whipped, as a warning both to keep awake and not to strike back in meeting.
Add tidbit: 
Obadiah Turner, of Lynn, gives in his Journal a sad, sad disclosure of total depravity which was exposed by one of these sudden church-awakenings, and the story is best told in the journalist's own vivid words:--
"June 3, 1616.--Allen Bridges hath bin chose to wake ye sleepers in meeting. And being much proude of his place, must needs have a fox taile fixed to ye ende of a long staff wherewith he may brush ye faces of them yt will have napps in time of discourse, likewise a sharpe thorne whereby he may pricke such as be most sound. On ye last Lord his day, as hee strutted about ye meeting-house, he did spy Mr. Tomlins sleeping with much comfort, hys head kept steadie by being in ye corner, and his hand grasping ye rail. And soe spying, Allen did quickly thrust his staff behind Dame Ballard and give him a grievous prick upon ye hand. Whereupon Mr. Tomlins did spring vpp mch above ye floore, and with terrible force strike hys hand against ye wall; and also, to ye great wonder of all, prophanlie exclaim in a loud voice, curse ye wood-chuck, he dreaming so it seemed yt a wood-chuck had seized and bit his hand. But on coming to know where he was, and ye greate scandall he had committed, he seemed much abashed, but did not speak. And I think he will not soon again goe to sleepe in meeting."

From A History of Baptists  By Thomas Armitage

Quite likely those sinners, of the Gentiles, John Wood, Joseph Bednap and Roger Scott, were all present. Wood had been tried, February 19th, 1646, for 'professing Anabaptist sentiments and withholding his children from baptism;' Rednap had broken the law in usually 'departing from the congregation at the time of administering the seal of baptism;' [Felt, Ecc. Hist., ii, p. 46] and 'Scott was that drowsy sinner who was tried by the Court, February 28th, 1643, for common sleeping at the public exercise upon the Lord's day, and for striking him that waked him and was 'severely whipped' for the same in the ensuing December. This deponent saith not whether he really was at Witter's, or, if so, whether he wanted a quiet nap unaroused by a pugnacious Puritan Dogberry; perhaps he thought that a stirring Baptist sermon was just the novelty to keep him wide awake on that Sunday and in that particular place.

From Some strange and curious punishments edited by Henry Mason Brook

The whipping-post and stocks were discontinued in Massachusetts early in the present century. On the 15th of January, 1801, one Hawkins stood an hour in the pillory in Court Street (now Washington Street), Salem, and had his ear cropped for the crime of forgery, pursuant to the sentence of the Supreme Court.


From  Curious Punishments of Bygone Days  By Alice Morse Earle



From New England's Cruel and Unusual Punishments by Robert Ellis Cahill

Salem, 1801, "Hawkins, for Forgery, stood for one hour in the pillory and had his ears cropped.
Another over-watchful Newbury "awakener" rapped on the head a nodding man who protested indignantly that he was wide-awake, and was only bowing in solemn assent and approval of the minister's arguments. Roger Scott, of Lynn, in 1643 struck the tithingman who thus roughly and suddenly wakened him; and poor sleepy and bewildered Roger, who is branded through all time as "a common sleeper at the publick exercise," was, for this most naturally resentful act, but also most shockingly grave offense, soundly whipped, as a warning both to keep awake and not to strike back in meeting.
Add tidbit: 
Obadiah Turner, of Lynn, gives in his Journal a sad, sad disclosure of total depravity which was exposed by one of these sudden church-awakenings, and the story is best told in the journalist's own vivid words:--
"June 3, 1616.--Allen Bridges hath bin chose to wake ye sleepers in meeting. And being much proude of his place, must needs have a fox taile fixed to ye ende of a long staff wherewith he may brush ye faces of them yt will have napps in time of discourse, likewise a sharpe thorne whereby he may pricke such as be most sound. On ye last Lord his day, as hee strutted about ye meeting-house, he did spy Mr. Tomlins sleeping with much comfort, hys head kept steadie by being in ye corner, and his hand grasping ye rail. And soe spying, Allen did quickly thrust his staff behind Dame Ballard and give him a grievous prick upon ye hand. Whereupon Mr. Tomlins did spring vpp mch above ye floore, and with terrible force strike hys hand against ye wall; and also, to ye great wonder of all, prophanlie exclaim in a loud voice, curse ye wood-chuck, he dreaming so it seemed yt a wood-chuck had seized and bit his hand. But on coming to know where he was, and ye greate scandall he had committed, he seemed much abashed, but did not speak. And I think he will not soon again goe to sleepe in meeting."

From A History of Baptists  By Thomas Armitage

Quite likely those sinners, of the Gentiles, John Wood, Joseph Bednap and Roger Scott, were all present. Wood had been tried, February 19th, 1646, for 'professing Anabaptist sentiments and withholding his children from baptism;' Rednap had broken the law in usually 'departing from the congregation at the time of administering the seal of baptism;' [Felt, Ecc. Hist., ii, p. 46] and 'Scott was that drowsy sinner who was tried by the Court, February 28th, 1643, for common sleeping at the public exercise upon the Lord's day, and for striking him that waked him and was 'severely whipped' for the same in the ensuing December. This deponent saith not whether he really was at Witter's, or, if so, whether he wanted a quiet nap unaroused by a pugnacious Puritan Dogberry; perhaps he thought that a stirring Baptist sermon was just the novelty to keep him wide awake on that Sunday and in that particular place.

From Some strange and curious punishments edited by Henry Mason Brook. The whipping-post and stocks were discontinued in Massachusetts early in the present century. On the 15th of January, 1801, one Hawkins stood an hour in the pillory in Court Street (now Washington Street), Salem, and had his ear cropped for the crime of forgery, pursuant to the sentence of the Supreme Court.
OTHER BLOG to check out
The Hanging of Goodwife Knapp in 1653

Monday, July 28, 2014

William Lloyd Garrison Mob Boston 1835

The lock which was used to secure Garrison in a prison, for his protection from men who wanted to lynch him, during the October, 1835 mob action.

From The Liberator Files 1831-1865


A Moment in Abolition History

A view by Horace Seldon

Often history records an event which later is seen as a crucial “moment”, filled with meaning beyond the specific time, place and personalities involved. Such a time happened in London, in June, 1840. In another place I’ve written about the international significance of that time, when Garrison and other men from New England refused to participate in an international anti-slavery convention, because women delegates had been denied recognition. The effect on the movement became significant as a “watershed moment”.

In Boston, in 1835, a similarly significant “moment” occurred, once again with William Lloyd Garrison at the center, this time encountered by an angry “mob”. To tell the story I will rely on Garrison’s own words, on the historical accounts of Henry Mayer, and of Garrison’s sons, Wendell Phillips Garrison, and Francis Jackson Garrison. Any particular “moment” has a historical context, and the year 1835, is a time which Garrison himself called a “reign of terror”, threatening individual abolitionists and the movement itself. See Papers to Garrison Mob by Lyman



On the left is Wendell Phillips, son of the City of Boston’s first mayor, eloquent Abolition speaker; Garrison in the middle; on the right, George Thompson, English Abolition leader, close collaborator with Garrison. The Garrisons named two of their sons after Phillips and Thompson. Photo from Rare Book Room Boston Public Library

In New England in premonition of “terror”, late 1834 saw the destruction of Prudence Crandall’s school in Canterbury, Connecticut. She had opened her school for young black women, and that act enflamed a hatred that warned abolitionists of the depth of what previously Garrison had called the “mountains of ice” which needed to be melted. Then came the hot hatred of 1835. In Charleston, South Carolina, a post office was seized by a crowd of people who seized mailbags full of anti-slavery pamphlets; the fire which burned the literature became the scene of the hanging of effigies of Arthur Tappan and Garrison. In Nashville, Amos Dresser, a young man who had joined abolitionist protests at Lane Seminary, was publicly assailed and lashed twenty times in the public market.


Prudence Crandall (September 3, 1803 - January 28, 1890), a schoolteacher raised as a Quaker, stirred controversy with her education of African-American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut. Her private school, opened in the fall of 1831,was boycotted when she admitted a 17-year-old African-American female student in the autumn of 1833; resulting in what is widely regarded as the first integrated classroom in the United States. She is Connecticut's official State Heroine.

In Canaan, New Hampshire, voters of the town assembled in town meeting, and acted to appoint a committee to oversee the physical removal from the town of Noyes Academy. That Academy had been started to educate young black children, under leadership which included one of Garrison’s devotees, David Child. Also in New Hampshire, in that same year, in a church in Northfield, George Storrs, was lifted from his knees while offering an anti-slavery prayer, and thrown out of the church! This “reign of terror” became very real for Boston, and for Garrison.

George Thompson, strong abolitionist leader from England, had come to the United States in the previous year, and was still touring the country in 1835. His speeches brought strength to the movement here, but he was under constant threat wherever he appeared. At an August speech in Boston abolitionist women had cleverly maneuvered him away from a threatening crowd. In the same month, a stone meant for Thompson, was thrown through a window, where he was speaking, in Lynn. Slaveholder hatred and fear took radical form. Subscriptions to a fund for procuring the heads of Garrison, Thompson, and Tappan, were invited to be made through a bookstore in Norfolk, Virginia. The Richmond Enquirer urged that these “wanton fanatics” be “put down forever”, and warned the North against interference with the right of slavery. Some Northern commercial interests, threatened with the loss of Southern patronage, or the destruction of Southern branches, responded by bringing pressure against abolitionists in Boston.


George Thompson, at age 47, in 1850-1851. United Kingdom abolitionist, close friend and ally to Garrison, after meeting in London, in 1833

One Boston newspaper, the Commercial Gazette, responded to an announcement of an August 14 annual meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, and predicted resistance. “This resistance will not come from a rabble, but from men of property and standing, who have a large interest at stake in this community…” The paper warned ladies to keep away, and threatened that if Thompson were to appear, he would be lynched.

Faneuil Hall was denied for abolitionist meetings, but on August 21, the same Hall was filled with those who wanted to “protect the rights of the South”. Harrison Gray Otis, retired Mayor, was a featured organizer-speaker for that crowded meeting. Otis spoke of the intent of abolitionists to create auxiliary societies in “every state and municipality”, asserting that this proved them to be “imminently dangerous” and “hostile to the spirit and letter of the constitution”. In the same period Samuel May had a speech broken up in Haverhill, and John Greenleaf Whittier was pelted with eggs in Concord. The Garrison family was frightened by a gallows which was planted on the doorstep of their home, on Brighton Street.

The postponed meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, was announced for three o-clock on Wednesday afternoon, October 21st. It was to be held at 46 Washington Street, in a hall at the Anti-Slavery office. The Commercial Gazette reported on the indignation among business men who thought that “women ought to be engaged in some better business than that of stirring up strife between the South and the North on this matter of slavery… they ought to be at home, attending to their domestic concerns …”

Believing that George Thompson was to speak, anti-abolition forces distributed handbills which urged people to “snake out” Thompson, and offered a one hundred dollar prize for the first to lay violent hands on him. It hoped that Thompson would “be brought to the tar-kettle before dark”. These warnings were widely distributed to insurance offices, hotels, reading rooms, from State Street to the North end. Fearful merchants petitioned Mayor Lyman to prevent the meeting. Photo from Caren Collection



On the day of the meeting, a crowd had gathered along Washington Street, and in the vicinity of City Hall. Hisses, sarcastic cheers, racial epithets were accompanied by demands for “Thompson”. The crowd was assured by the Mayor, who had arrived, that Thompson was not in the building. Word spread soon that Garrison was there. He had come from his home on Brighton Street, where he had hosted a dinner for John Vashon, a leader of the Pittsburgh colored community; he was accompanied by Charles Burleigh, abolitionist from Connecticut. Garrison, after consulting with the women leaders of the meeting, retired into the Anti-Slavery office, separated from the gathering by a partition. (See Letters to John Vashon--Garrison)




The birth of John Bathan Vashon in 1792 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black seaman, businessman and abolitionist. 

The President of the Society, Mary Parker, proceeded with the business of the meeting, with the customary prayers and reading of Scripture. She was interrupted by the Mayor bursting into the room, requesting that the ladies abandon the meeting and go home. A conference between Parker, Maria Chapman, and the Mayor resulted in the decision by the ladies to adjourn the meeting and reconvene at the Chapman home at 11 West Street.

The story then becomes one of a remarkably dignified walk by the women, black and white, arm in arm, six blocks down Washington Street, through an angry mob, still resolute in determination to continue their meeting. It is also the story of a portion of the mob gaining access to the building, grabbing Garrison, and his final release from the crowd by “two burly Irishmen not know as abolitionists”. He was then rushed by constables, into a carriage, and taken to the Leveret Street jail for safety overnight. John Vashon visited Garrison the next morning, where he was in prison, and gave him a hat to replace the one which had been “cut in pieces by the knives of men of propoerty and standing”.

History most often gives emphasis to the threat to Garrison, who was indeed nearly lynched, and could have been killed by some in the mob. Here I want to lift up the courage of the women who walked through that mob, undeterred in the immediate purpose of their meeting, or the overarching purpose of abolition. Here also it is appropriate to some who were present that day who were led to become dedicated abolitionists.

Young Wendell Phillips, son of Boston‘s first Mayor, dated his “conversion” to the abolitionist cause from the day when he witnessed the mob. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, just returned from medical training in Europe, knowing nothing of Garrison, was also infuriated by the mob’s action against Garrison. He vowed himself an abolitioinst from that moment, and shortly after subscribed to Garrison’s Liberator.




Edmund Quincy, son of the second Mayor, was alerted toward the rights of abolition. His father, Josiah Quincy, then President of the City Council, saw the mob from his office at 27 State Street, rushed to Garrison’s side until he was placed in the carriage and driven off, . Rev. James E. Crawford, later of Nantucket, was walking on State Street and encountered the riotous mob, and “his heart and soul became fully dedicated to the cause of immediate emancipation. Thirty years later, William H. Logan told of how, soon after the mob had left, he had received from Sheriff Parkman, remnants of a pair of pantaloons which had been torn from Garrison. At that same 1855 remembrance of the occasion, William C. Nell reported that a Boston merchant, David Tilden, Esq., “immediately became a subscriber to the Liberator and continued a reader until his death. Reports of several others of the affect of being witness may be suspect, but the affect on Harriett Martineau was widely reported. Martineau, an English teacher, professor, liberator, had been in the country for months, conducting what might be termed a sociological study of slavery. She had interviewed slave owners and abolitionists alike, adhering to her academic style for the most part. On the historic day, she was on her way from Salem to Providence, passing through Boston as the crowd was gathering. Friends, seeing the well-dressed crowd, and knowing it was close to a Post Office, informed her that the crowd was assembled because it was a “busy foreign-post day”. In Providence she heard the factual account. She volunteered her interest and within a few weeks she was a speaker at the Society. In December she visited Garrison in Boston, and became a worthy supporter.




This date, October 21, 1835 is worthy of celebration as a “moment” of gathering strength for the Abolition Movement in the United States. Five years later, in London, came a similarly significant “moment” of strength for abolitionists in the United Kingdom. In that “moment”, a major issue revolved around what some have called the “woman” question.

Public Sentiment at the North Date: Saturday, March 7, 1835  Liberator (Boston, MA) 


 [Boston; Post; Saturday; Garrison; William L. Garrison; Jailor; Wednesday; Deputy; Sheriff; Parkman] Tuesday, October 27, 1835  Salem Gazette (Salem, MA)



Other Reads

Sunday, July 27, 2014

William Dole Newbury

Some new information from Archival Center Newburyport
Location: William Dole's home: Directory 


                                                                                    Photo from Wayne Chase


1900 Newbury census Wm. Dole born Nov. 1862, age 37, grocer. Married 11 years.
Wife: Edith S. Dole. Age 37 born Aug. 1862 MA,
Dau. Elsie S. (S for Staniford) Dole, age 7 born Nov. 1872.
Wm Dole was the son of Nathaniel Dole and Mary C. Tenney born 10 November 1862 Newbury, MA
Also see that in 1865 listed in the Nahant, Essex Co, MA census: Nathaniel and Mary C. Dole and son William. Father was listed as a famer.
William also has a sister Gertrude

Nathaniel Dole b. Ipswich 1841 who md. Mary Carter Tenney is the father of Wm. Dole bonr 1862. This is from the Rolfe Papers.
Daniel6 Dole (Enoch5, Willliam4-3-2 Richard1) [737]
born Oct. 10, 1804 son of Enoch and Molly (Plummer) Dole, he married Mary Ann Hallett.
He died Jan. 4, 1847 a 42y 2m 24d. Mrs. Mary Ann Hallett Dole m Nov. 29, 1849, widow
a 41 b Sussex Vale, N.B. d Samuel and Sally Hallett and Dr. Charles Proctor widower of
Rowley.
William Dole b South Boston son Daniel and Mary Ann Hallett was drowned in river
Parker Oct. 28, 1851 a 12y 8m 25d
Nathaniel Dole b Ipswich Plum Island Dec. 1, 1841; m Nov. 18, 1860 Mary Carter Tenney.
He died Jan. 19, 1922 Nbpt aged 80 y 1m 16d
Delia Dole b Dec. 7, 1843; m Prescott.
Blow Safe in a Newbury Store Owner Gave Chase but the Burglars Escaped with About $25 in Cash Date: Friday, October 23, 1908 Paper: Boston Journal (Boston, MA)


Wine is Loot in Newbury Burglary
Date: Tuesday, October 28, 1919
Paper: Pawtucket Times (Pawtucket, RI)

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Camp Colby Concord Civil War

Concord Heights Civil War training camps were Camp Belknap (1862), Camp Colby (1862), and Camp Berry (1861). Located at the "Concord Plains" on the east side of the Merrimack River. Concord Civil War Camps


These letters are from Scott's 2nd enlistment, in the 11th New Hampshire Infantry. More than 50 Vermonters served in the regiment, which "was organized at Concord and mustered in September 2, 1862. Moved to Washington, D.C., September 11-14, 1862. Attached to Brigg's Brigade, Casey's Division, Military District of Washington, to October, 1862. 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, 9th Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, to March, 1863. 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, 9th Army Corps, Dept. of Ohio, to June, 1863. 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, 9th Army Corps, Army of the Tennessee, to August, 1863. 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, 9th Army Corps, Dept. of the Ohio, to April, 1864. 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, 9th Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, to June, 1865." (Frederick H. Dyer, "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion," Part 3)

1862 Letters1863 Letters1864 Letters1865 Letters


Photo: Don E. Scott (Dave Morin)
See Putting a Face to a Story
From Fredericksburg to The Crater till the war's end, Private Don E. Scott believed God was by his side
Camp Colby
Concord, NH
Sept. 2nd, 1862

Dear Mother,

I cannot stop to write much this morning only a few words that you may know that I am well. I have been very well with the exception of a large boil on my arm. It is coming to a head now and will be better soon. I have opportunity to come home but will not for I have already bidden the good people of Warner goodbye and don't care to see them till I come home from the war a timeworn and honored patriot. When you come down on Saturday please bring me some money for I want to get several things. By the way there is other money besides the $1.50 offered by the town, which all say I am entitled to. Mr. Dorr offers $5.00, Mr. Ordway $2.00, and some others say $100 to every recruit. Will Father please look into it & get all that belongs to me. I don't think of anything else that I shall want.

Give my regards to all the people who may inquire of me. I promised to write Mrs. Davis but tell her I hardly think I can find time till I get down in Dixie which will be very soon according to all accounts. The Governor has said we must go a week from today. Be sure to come down Saturday.

This in affection
From your son,
Don

Private Charles M. Judkins of Company A, 9th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment, and Company G, 6th U.S. Veteran Reserve Corps Infantry Regiment with bayoneted musket
Inscription on handwritten note: "To my sister Addie. When this you see remember me from Charles M. Judkins, Co. A, 9th Regt., Camp Colby N.H.V., Concord, N.H."

The Thirteenth was at Camp Colby from September 11-15 to 4 a. m. of October 6. The Thirteenth New Hampshire was organized at Camp Colby, Concord, in September, 1862 Thirteenth Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865: A Diary Covering Three Years and a Day

Below contains many letters from Camp Colby

From History of the Seventeenth Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry. 1862-1863
Concord Plains would hardly be selected from choice as a desirable place of residence during the usual New England winter. The barracks erected by the state were of rough boards, hastily put together, with now and then a crack of considerable magnitude, that neither straw nor mud could render impervious to the driving snow which so often fell, or the violent attacks from the north wind—an almost daily visitor. But the Seventeenth had come to camp for service, and this winter experience was, as they supposed, but a prelude to the promised filling of their ranks, to which they looked forward with confidence, and for the accomplishment of which they cheerfully endured, and made the best of, surrounding circumstances. The barracks were all alike—no one had been builded better than another; and it was not unusual, even in regimental headquarters, for the officers to find in the morning upon awakening an extra coverlet of snow supplementing the woolen blanket, which with clean straw underneath made up their beds. It was not a long ride to the well-kept "Phenix," where Steb Dumas was ever glad to accommodate guests and surround them with every comfort. The hospitable "Eagle," too, was equally available. But the officers of the Seventeenth were always in quarters. What was good enough for the men was good enough for them. It was"share and share alike;" and there were no requisitions upon the quartermaster from headquarters that were not equally available for each one of the company barracks. Doubtless all this had a good effect upon the regiment as a whole, and went far to uphold the strict military discipline and create the strong bond of personal interest among all ranks, which it was remarked existed to a greater degree in Camp Ethan Colby than in any other command assembled on Concord Plains.
Special Order No. 15 is an illustration of the maxim, "To do in the most thorough manner the thing that is next to be done," which has been already quoted as characteristic of New England manhood; which has ever been characteristic of Colonel Kent, and from the observance of which came the results foreshadowed in his regimental utterance The order is as follows:

Headquarters Seventeenth N. H. Volunteers,
Camp Ethan Colby, Concord, N. H.,
January 25, 1863.
Special Order No. 15.
The benefit of the service and the contentment and cheerfulness of the men require that their time be fully occupied. As soldiers, the time of the officers and men belongs to the government, and no more pernicious results can happen to a command than those that flow from idleness and consequent discontent.
It is therefore ordered: That from and after Monday, January 26, 1863, the following rules be observed without the slightest deviation, on penalty of such punishment as may be awarded by court martial, or ordered by the proper regimental authority:
1st. All soldiers are on duty, and will perform all duty required of them unless they have a written certificate of disability from the surgeon, and unless they have been on guard during the previous day, in which case they will be excused from all but police duty on the forenoon following, and will return to regular duties at 1 p. m.
2d. A detachment will be ordered to prepare at least one dozen birch brooms for sweeping the parade, and the officer of the day will see that the entire parade, company parade, and grounds about the officers' quarters are swept and the refuse carried outside the lines.
3d. All wood received during the day will be piled up each morning in its appropriate place and the chips gathered together and burned on the guard fires.
4th. The arms of the men will be thoroughly and practically inspected by the company officers before going on dress parade, and any damage to the arms or dirt or rust upon them will merit punishment according to army regulations and the usages of the service. The clothing of the men must also be neatly brushed before appearing on parade. All deficiencies will be reported, and, if necessary, a further inspection will be made by the proper officer at each dress parade.
5th. Company drill from 10 to 11 a. m. and from 2 to 4 p. m. will be observed daily on the parade when the weather will permit, and in the barracks, in the manual, when the weather is bad. This may be varied for battalion drill at the discretion of the officer commanding the camp, and these drills will be attended by every man not excused by paragraphs of this order.
6th. Before drawing in the guard at night sentinels will be posted inside the doors of the barracks, and no one will be allowed to pass out under any pretense whatever unless accompanied by a non-commissioned officer.
The colonel commanding joins with the officers and men in a desire to make the history of the Seventeenth honorable alike to the state and itself. Nothing but a close attention to discipline will secure this end. He acknowledges the general good behavior of the men, and confidently expects, in the execution of this order, that he will have the cordial support of every good soldier of whatever grade.
Be the future of the regiment what it may, it must never be said that the Seventeenth New Hampshire Volunteers consumed any period of its existence in inactivity, or that the uncertainties which surrounded a part of its career made its members forgetful of their duties as gentlemen and soldiers.
Let the record of the regiment, while it remains in the state, be unsurpassed for soldierly attention and progress, by that of any which has preceded it. Let each officer and soldier unite in the simple performance of duty, and then, whether as a regiment on the battlefield or as a band of citizens and friends at home, we shall be able to refer with pride to our common connection with the regiment.
By order of
Henry O. Kent,
Col. 17IA N. H. Vols
See NH Fights in Civil War by Mather Cleveland

Camp Berry & Civil War

Concord Civil War Camps (1861 - 1862), Concord Heights
Civil War training camps were Camp Belknap (1862), Camp Colby (1862), and Camp Berry (1861). Located at the "Concord Plains" on the east side of the Merrimack River.  See Chapter 7 Disgrace at Gettysburg: The Arrest and Court-Martial of Brigadier General Thomas A. Rowley, USA Camp Berry was a "depot for drafted men" Below are articles and other archival material.


The Portland Rolling Mills was built near Calvary Cemetery on the site of Camp Berry of Civil War fame in 1865-1866. It became a company town, with forty-seven homes and sixty-five families by 1870. The village, compromising eighty-five acres, would eventually include a school, auditorium, ball field, stores, and rows of dark barn-red houses. Some of the old military barracks were modified into dwellings, while other homes were built on and off from what became Central Avenue. The Mills was managed by Portland entrepreneur John Bundy Brown until 1878 and manufactured railroad, bar, hoop, and other iron products. In 1872 the company turned out 14,000 tons of rails and employed 200 men. The works was connected by a railroad bridge to Portland.

From Local towns played important role in Civil War
By Michael Kelley mkelley@keepmecurrent.com

Hiram Gregory Berry (August 27, 1824 – May 2, 1863)

Although much of the action took place hundreds of miles away, south of the Mason-Dixon line, southern Maine played a large role in the Civil War, which began 150 years ago this week with the firing on Fort Sumter.

Kathy DiPhilippo, a historian for the South Portland Historical Society, said one of the state's three camps to train soldiers was located along the Fore River in present-day South Portland. She said that camp, which was officially set up by the state in 1862 and named Camp Lincoln, before being renamed Camp Berry in honor of Hiriam Berry, a Maine native killed at the Battle of Chancellorsville, served as the training grounds for soldiers from York, Cumberland, Oxford and Androscoggin counties.

"Our role in the Civil War was significant because people came from all over southern Maine and western Maine to muster in and train here in South Portland," said DiPhilippo.

According to Paul Ledman, a Cape Elizabeth resident, history teacher at Scarborough High School and author of "A Maine Town Responds: Cape Elizabeth and South Portland in the Civil War," 410 men from Cape Elizabeth were credited as serving in the Civil War.

Ledman spoke Monday about the impact of the Civil War on Cape Elizabeth at a Cape Elizabeth Historical Preservation Society event at the Thomas Memorial Library. Ledman's discussion this week was just the first of many events that will be held during the next few years as museums and organizations and historians throughout the state turn their focus to the Civil War.

DiPhilippo said last week that two of Maine's most famous infantries, the 17th Maine and the 20th Maine, both trained at Camp Lincoln in the summer of 1862.

The 20th Maine, the famed infantry lead by Brunswick native Joshua Chamberlain, came to the camp to train in August 1862, DiPhilippo said, before heading off for three years of battle, including the defense of Little Round Top in the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863.


Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828-1914)

Soldiers in Cape Elizabeth, which at the time also included the city of South Portland, played a significant role fighting for the Union side. Company E of the 17th Maine Infantry was almost entirely made up of Cape Elizabeth men. The 17th Maine was in service from August 1862 to June 1865 and saw action in some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, including the battles of Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, and Locust Grove, as well as the Siege of Cold Harbor.

Of the 33 Cape Elizabeth men in Company E, commanded by Cape Elizabeth residents Captain Ellis Sawyer and First Lt. George Fickett, only five left the infantry in June 1865 unscathed.

In fact, of the 1,371 soldiers who were enrolled in the 17th Maine, 207 were killed, 552 were wounded and 163 died of disease. It is the highest loss of any Maine infantry.

"They were welcomed as conquering heroes and marched down Congress Street with the citizens wildly cheering them. Probably never had a returning regiment been so enthusiastically received in Portland," said William Jordan in his book, "A History of Cape Elizabeth."

While Maine sent many of its men to fight down south, Fort Preble, now the site of Southern Maine Community College, played a role in the only Civil War battle that was fought in Maine, the Battle of Portland Harbor.

On June 26, a group of Confederate raiders, led by Lt. Charles W. Read, entered Portland Harbor in a fishing vessel they had captured and attempted to destroy ships and shipping facilities in the harbor. The Confederates captured the Caleb Cushing, a cutter ship that belonged to the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, a precursor to the United States Coast Guard.


Lt Charles W. Read
"To have the Confederates come right up to Portland Harbor, it was quite a bold move," DiPhilippo said. "You really didn't see activity like that here during the war."

That bold move was foiled, however, after it was witnessed from atop the Portland Observatory. News of the attack spread quickly, and the Confederates were not able to leave the harbor before Union forces intervened. The raiders were captured, but not before abandoning the ship and setting it on fire. They were held at Fort Preble for a few days, but because of the outrage of having Confederate forces in Cape Elizabeth, they were moved to Fort Warren in Boston.

During Read's raid, which lasted from June 6 to June 27, 1863, he traveled along the eastern seaboard commandeering ships and destroying them. In total, Read captured or destroyed 22 U.S. vessels.

These tactics by the Confederates disrupted the shipping economy in Cape Elizabeth, said Ledman. "It sent up insurance rates and it had a chilling effect on commerce," he said.

Ledman said while 410 men from Cape Elizabeth were credited as serving in the Civil War, only 140 of them were listed on the town's 1860 census. This, he said, can possibly be explained by the fact many wealthy men both locally and across the nation could pay either young men or immigrants to serve in their place. Because of this policy, he said, it is difficult to determine how many residents of Cape Elizabeth actually fought in the war.

Regardless of the number, Jordan noted in his book that the Civil War was something that was closely followed in town.

"As the war progressed, Cape Elizabeth continued to do its part," said William Jordan in his book. "There was hardly a public or private meeting held that did not involved some direct reference to the rebellion."

According to a section about the Civil War in Scarborough in the town's 350th anniversary book, Earlene Ahlquist Chadborne said Maine residents, including many in Scarborough, were quick to embrace the Union's fight against slavery.

"When the southern forces captured Fort Sumter signaling the war's start, the hills and valley's of Maine resounded with martial fervor," Chadborne wrote. "Several Maine communities raised volunteer regiments within 24 hours of President Lincoln's call to arms. Like Mainers everywhere, Scarborough residents supported the Union cause."

Chadborne said while many residents in Scarborough went to fight, many more were at home doing what they could to support the effort.

"The entire community rallied behind the troops. Residents in each section of town met at local schools to roll bandages, knit socks and gather provisions to send to the front."

That is not to say that everyone in the area was sympathetic to the Union's cause. The local opposition to the war, Ledman noted, could be seen in several of the 140 letters written to and from Scott Dyer, a Cape Elizabeth resident who fought in the war. The letters are in the Cape Elizabeth Historical Preservation Society's collection.

Below The 20th Maine Infantry, which was led by famed general and Maine native Joshua Chamberlain, reconnected for a reunion at Little Round Top in Gettysburg, Pa., in 1889. The regiment trained in Cape Elizabeth.




"Cape Elizabeth had a lot of opposition to the war," Ledman said. "This was a very conservative community in many ways."



Camp Berry Date: Thursday, January 26, 1865 Paper: Daily Eastern Argus (Portland, ME)



Camp Berry and Its Men Date: Wednesday, February 3, 1864
Paper: Daily Eastern Argus (Portland, ME)





Brevet Major General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Camp Berry Date: Saturday, December 5, 1863 Paper: Daily Eastern Argus (Portland, ME)



A Window on the Past Lost neighborhood: South Portland’s Ligonia By Craig Skelton
South Portland Historical Society
By all appearances, progress washed away all traces of Ligonia long ago. Except, I did find one small remnant tucked away in a distant corner of Calvary Cemetery. Difficult to make out in the accompanying photograph, the marquee is now hanging upside down, yet I’m sure I once saw a picture of this gate with the village name clearly displayed.

In the mid-1800s, the entire area from today’s Cash Corner to the waterfront was referred to as Ligonia. The area along the waterfront was the site of a Civil War training camp under the name Camp Abraham Lincoln and later was renamed Camp Berry. Following the Civil War, a company called Portland Rolling Mills built a facility along the waterfront and worker housing; a school and a church soon sprung up. Since roughly the 1880s, the intersection of Main Street and Broadway took on the name Cash Corner and the Ligonia village name became affiliated just with the area closer to the waterfront.

A historical researcher named Hazel Spencer Mack shared some of her fond memories of Ligonia, which were published in the “History of South Portland,” printed in 1992. She recalled there was only one grocery store, called Fuller’s, which was well-kept and clean. Customers did not frequent the store, however, because a driver would stop by in the morning for their grocery order and return to deliver the order in the afternoon. The children of Ligonia did frequent the store for its penny candy.

One item you would find very little of on the shelves was bread, as Hazel recalled that it was a disgrace for a housewife of that time to not bake her own for the family. In the early part of the 20th century when automobiles became more common, Fuller’s Grocery Store closed when people became more mobile and were attracted to bright new grocery stores in Portland.

An area of South Portland known as Ligonia has all but disappeared. A marker in Calvary Cemetery can still be found.
There were few conveniences before indoor plumbing and area residents would walk to a water spigot with their buckets each day to fill them. In the wintertime, the spigot frequently froze and residents would have to wait for hours while the water company tried to get the flow going again. 

Trenches left behind by the men in training when the area was occupied by Camp Berry served as an area for the kids to play “soldier” and it is also said those trenches were used by a manufacturer of sugar in the processing of beet sugar.
Many changes have occurred in this area and the proximity to the harbor fueled a transition from neighborhood homes of commercial and industrial uses. If you drive today on the spur from Main Street to Route 295 or Veteran’s Bridge, large brightly painted oil tanks and cemetery expansion occupy most of what was once Ligonia.
Although there may be fewer and fewer folks around that share memories of the village once located there, I find it interesting when listening to scanner frequencies that the police dispatchers still refer to this area around Main and Lincoln Street as Ligonia.
Note to readers: we are searching for a photograph of Bix Furniture Stripping, formerly located at 158 Pickett St. If you have a photo to share, please contact the society at 767- 7299.
Craig Skelton is a guest columnist and member of South Portland Historical Society.