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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781596295193 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Arcadia Publishing SC |
| Publication date: | 09/16/2009 |
| Series: | Landmarks |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Sales rank: | 1,119,103 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.31(d) |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Ancient Beginnings
Before 1626
Salem's wicked cool Witch House at the corner of Essex and North Streets stands on one of the oldest sites in North America. It is a seventeenth-century property that has deep roots in much older times. But why trust my testimony? Consider instead the ancient account provided by Salem's scribe. Hear the words of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who descended from John Hathorne, the seventeenth-century witchcraft judge and the black-robed court companion and in-law of Jonathan Corwin.
Tucked 'tween the covers of his Twice-Told Tales, Hawthorne described the Salem spot that stands precisely three hundred paces east of Essex and North Streets, the place that anciently, like the Witch House site, bordered an old east–west Indian trail.
Shawmut (meaning "at the spring"), Mishawum ("big spring"), K't-Ashum-Ut and Tashmoo ("great spring") were fine words spoken here centuries past, as ancient First Peoples, the Massaschusett or Massachuseok, built their campfires, kept their council, honored the Sacred Four Directions and referenced the living waters that eternally and effortlessly bubbled forth at what in more recent years has been called Town House Square.
Hawthorne described the old town pump, later built on the ancient water spring site. He allowed the Salem pump to speak its own story:
I will delight the town with a few historical reminiscences. In far antiquity, beneath a darksome shadow of venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of the leaf-strewn earth, in the very spot where you now behold me, on the sunny pavement [three hundred paces east of the Witch House.] The water was as bright and clear, and deemed as precious, as liquid diamonds. The Indian sagamores drank of it, from time immemorial, till the fatal deluge of the firewater [or war and plagues] burst upon the red men, and swept their whole race [mostly] away from the cold fountains. Endicott, and his followers, came next, and often knelt down to drink, dipping their long beards in the spring. The richest goblet, then, was of birch-bark. Governor Winthrop, after a journey afoot from Boston, drank here, out of the hollow of his hand.
Fresh water has always been the most prized of earthly possessions. Without it, no human or animal can long live. Long before the natives walked with muffled moccasins the Essex Street footpath toward the Naumkeag or Salem spring, perhaps the path itself was an animal trail that simply led to this place to drink. Here came the deer, the bear, the wolf, the chipmunk, the squirrel and more. Here came Nanepashemet's people to hunt and to fetch water, meat and hides.
See the clock that records the times before 1600. Those were the times of the distant deep, the times in which Salem bloomed and blossomed as Naumkeag or Naum-ke-ag, the Native American fishing or fish-processing place. Those were the times when the air was clean, the trees stood tall, the sun beat warmly and the beautiful landscape here was covered with forest, hills, meadows and marsh. Those were the times when the Massachusett or Massachuseok peoples came here seasonally to summer, hunt, fish and farm Indian corn and other crops (such as beans, and askuntersquash or squash) in beautifully tended gardens located by the shore of the local rivers and Massabequash or by Salem Harbor itself.
Oh for beloved Naumkeag! Does it still survive in a parallel realm? Generations and generations and generations of people resided here then, cutting the wood to make bent-sapling structures, covered with tree bark and outfitted with woven mats and warm furs. Tall trees were felled with stone tools to make mishoonash, or dugout canoes. Animals such as the deer were hunted with stone-tipped arrows to make hides, clothes and shoes.
In that ancient and fairest Naumkeag, the peninsular east–west land was bounded by two tegwas, or tidal rivers, on the north and south. The shawmut or spring bubbled forth its clear life-supporting waters near the middle of the peninsula. The trail now known as Essex Street went down the high spine of the land to the spring. Beyond, and to the east, it led to the shore and to the place now known as the Willows, where stone-working and fish-processing was done. Beyond, and to the west, it pointed off toward Wachusett (the hill) and the lands of the Nipmuck (fresh water place) people.
Along Naumkeag's old east–west forest floor trail walked the people who viewed most animals as their kin, their advisers and their spirit brothers. Over time, the narrow woods trail was widened to become a cart path, a rural road and then, in more modern times, a paved urban street. The trees were felled to make houses, ships and fences, were used for firewood and were cleared to create farm fields. The old days and old times were almost completely forgotten, until trenches were dug to install new pipes. In the early 1800s, perhaps when Hawthorne was a boy, a man digging a trench pulled up an odd carved rock from near Salem's Essex Street. Connawa! It was a bear sculpture, a prized object, from the days before the Witch House — from the days and nights of Naumkeag long ago.
CHAPTER 2First Period Puritans
1626–1674
We know from English, French and Native American sources that Nanepashemet's domain here in old Naumkeag suffered serious problems between about 1603 and 1626. These problems were mostly sparked by foreign invasions from the east. In 1603, North America was settled by the first French, while in 1626, Naumkeag was settled by the English.
In the opening decades of the seventeenth century, three related factors severely affected an old Native American trade empire and political kingdom here in Naumkeag, as well as on what is now Boston's North Shore. These were the French fur trade, the Tarratine Wars and plagues and diseases.
Beginning in 1603, the French government under King Henry dispatched a heavily armed Samuel de Champlain to America to develop a new French fur trade. This was undertaken to enrich France and earn new wealth through providing warm fur clothes for all of Europe. After early explorations along the Massachusetts coast, the primary French base was established farther north at Port Royal in Nova Scotia, but the new French presence continued to have effects here.
One of the most devastating effects caused by the new French presence in the early 1600s has been called the Tarratine Wars. To understand these conflicts, one needs to look at the Gulf of Maine region as a whole, from Cape Cod south of Naumkeag and Salem as far north as Nova Scotia and Canada. This entire coastal region was explored by the French and utilized as a basis of a transformative new fur trade.
In the first decade of the seventeenth century, the Micmac or Tarratines of Nova Scotia became solid fur trade partners and trade intermediaries with the French. They traded beaver pelts and furs to the French for such exotic European commodities as metal knives, copper kettles, guns and gunpowder. In addition, they utilized their knowledge of native ways and traditions to secure additional pelts and wealth from other natives living farther away, such as Nanepashemet and the Massachusett in eastern Massachusetts.
Between about 1607 and 1619, a variety of fur trade disputes, and possibly other factors, caused the Micmac to seek to monopolize the coastal fur trade and eliminate the Massachusett as a trade competitor. The Micmac had significant advantages of nearly unlimited access to French arms and gunpowder, as well as potentially other new technologies, such as French ships, French maps and navigational knowledge.
A series of hostile sea raids were launched by the Micmacs/Tarratines against the Massachusett and their allies in Maine and other points along the New England coast. These raids involved Massachusetts in the Tarratine Wars. They are generally credited with Naumkeag being raided and militarily overwhelmed about 1615 and with Nanepashemet (the leading local ruler) being brutally assassinated on a hill overlooking the Mystic River in modern Medford, Massachusetts, in 1619.
Along with the disruptive military conflicts and wars, a series of highly contagious and deadly pandemics or plagues wrought havoc along the Massachusetts coast and in other areas involved in the Tarratine Wars. An estimated 90 percent of the traditional strength and population of the Massachusett Nation was destroyed by 1620 by the French fur trade, wars and plagues. Taking advantage of the new depopulations, the English through the Mayflower Pilgrims established permanent residence at Plymouth on Cape Cod. The Mayflower Pilgrims included such well-known Separatists as William Bradford, Priscilla and John Alden and the military leader Miles Standish.
The people of Salem typically cite 1626 as the first English founding date, because in that year Roger Conant and others moved Cape Ann colony remains from the current site of Gloucester south to Naumkeag. Conant moved the group, which included Thomas Gardner and John Balch, to Naumkeag largely because Naumkeag appeared to offer more natural resources, including fertile farmland, to sustain the growth of a new English colony and town. Conant is honored as the founder of modern Salem, and a large statue of Roger Conant stands today by the Salem Common. Yet because the Cape Ann colony was first founded in 1623, the roots of Salem's English colonization actually go back to that earlier year. Let us provide a slightly more informative account by including the 1623 chapter.
1623 Origins of English Salem
The 1623 Cape Ann colonization effort was spearheaded by an English group known as the Dorchester Company, or the Dorchester Adventurers. It was based in Dorchester, Dorset, in the West Country of England, near the English Channel. Here, near what was a Roman military town in ancient times (Durnovaria, founded in AD 43), various later tribes established the Anglo-Saxon Dornwaraceaster, which over time became Dorchester. By the early 1600s, Dorchester became mostly an English farming and trade center. It suffered from overpopulation, unemployment, poverty and other problems.
Reverend John White's Influence
The charismatic English leader who labored to solve Dorchester's many social problems while also colonizing the Massachusetts Bay Colony was Reverend John White (1575–1648), who served both as rector of St. Peter's Church in Dorchester, Dorset, as well as rector of Holy Trinity in Dorchester. Mostly forgotten now in Massachusetts, White was a profoundly progressive visionary and a force for good. After he was buried at St. Peter's in Dorchester, Dorset, it was inscribed:
[Here] lies the body of the Rev'd John White, M.A. of New College, Oxford ... A man of great godliness, good scholarship and wonderful ability and kindness he had a very strong sway in this town. He greatly set forward the emigration of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where his name will live in unfading remembrance.
White envisioned a new social order in which the excess population of England's West Country could be shipped to Massachusetts and live under more perfect circumstances, with free public education, Church-controlled alehouses and a high standard of living. A permanent foothold established on the Massachusetts coast would also reduce the costs (and increase profitability) of the fishing business, so new wealth would be returned to Mother England to do more social good through that industry as well.
Reverend John White's older sister, Elizabeth White, also born in Stanton, St. John, in Oxfordshire, married a man named Thomas Gardner Sr. Through the White-Gardner family ties, Reverend White's nephew, Thomas Gardner Jr., was chosen to head up the 1623 Cape Ann colony. Gardner was chief-in-charge of a mostly male fishing station and saltworks at Cape Ann before Roger Conant came in and moved the operation to Naumkeag. Conant, who worked professionally as a "salter" in England, hailed from England's West Country as well. Although he never came to Massachusetts personally, Reverend John White is credited with having encouraged the transition and relocation to Naumkeag in 1626. In 1912, Dr. Charles H. Levermore noted, "[In] the face of failure and discouragement the interest and pertinacity of John White kept alive the settlement, which had removed to Naumkeag, afterwards Salem, and out of this beginning grew the colony of Massachusetts Bay."
Reverend John White labored intensively to find funders and English sponsors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony settlement. Some of White's financial backers in England included Knight Sir Francis Ashley of Dorchester, Dorset; Governor John Endecott; and Christopher and John Conant of East Budleigh, Devon. Christopher and John were two brothers of Roger Conant, and John Conant, like John White, was a church rector.
Because of the earlier efforts, Salem can point not only to 1626 as the year of its first English transplantation and founding on its current site, but also earlier to 1623 and the efforts of the Gardners, Whites and others. They organized the Cape Ann colony, where modern Gloucester, Massachusetts, is situated now. Out of these bold undertakings, English Naumkeag, Salem, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony evolved.
The First English Arrive at Naumkeag in 1626 and 1628
A review of Salem histories by Sidney Perley and others indicates that Roger Conant's group of transplanted Cape Ann colonists included minister John Lyford, William Allen, John Balch, Thomas Gardner, Walter Knight, Richard Norman, Peter Palfry and John Woodbury. They sailed from Cape Ann to a place on the North River in Salem later called Massey's Cove, located near the foot of Skerry Street, off Bridge Street east of the Salem Common. Some settlers, such as Lyford and Woodbury, relocated to Virginia and England after the transplanting was achieved.
Additional English ships with settlers were dispatched to reinforce the relocated Cape Ann colony in 1628, 1629 and 1630. Descriptions in 1926 of the 1628 expedition make passing references to Reverend John White's strong influence overseas and the fact that after the Tarratine Wars and plague, surviving Massachusett natives in the Naumkeag area became militarily allied with the English Puritans to ward off common potential enemies like the Tarratines (Micmac), Mohawk and French. While the "Old Planters" from Cape Ann established a new Naumkeag foothold on the south shore of the North River, a peaceful allied camp of the Massachusett or Naumkeag natives was located directly across and on the north side of the North River.
Salem's North River therefore attracted both Native American as well as English settlers in the 1620s, and the place called Naumkeag was distinctly multicultural before relations between the two groups strained to a breaking point (and King Philip's War) in the 1670s. After Nanepashemet's death in 1619, the Massachusett Native Americans were governed by Nanepashemet's widow, known to history only as "Squaw Sachem," meaning "Lady Leader." The English settlement, called Naumkeag before 1629, was governed initially by Roger Conant in 1626 but was governed by John Endecott (or Endicott) in and after 1628.
Endicott's interest in Naumkeag was sparked in England by the visit of John Woodbury to England and Reverend John White's promotional work in England's West Country in the 1620s. White was a firm friend of Roger Conant. Settlement of "New England" by White and these early Puritans was advocated for a number of reasons, including to create a more "pure" or perfect English society, as well as to provide a fix for the West Country's overpopulation and underemployment challenges.
John Endicott and others secured an English grant to the Naumkeag settlement and surrounding territory, and Endicott was selected to look after the new holdings. Consequently, in the spring of 1628, John Endicott, with his wife and a band of settlers, set sail for Massachusetts in the ship Abigail. This was likely a sturdy timber-framed vessel that sported three masts, mostly rigged with square sails, and was a converted merchant ship. Transatlantic passages in the 1620s typically ran at least two months long and were fraught with many hazards, including potential losses due to shipwreck, pirates, bad weather, running out of supplies and illness.
Fortunately for the development of English Naumkeag and later Salem, the Abigail was professionally piloted by a good crew, and the ship arrived safely, landing at Naumkeag on September 6, 1628. Conant and the Old Planters gathered on one shore to receive them, and we are told that Squaw Sachem's Naumkeag natives thronged the opposite shore to witness the arrival. After the Abigail's arrival, the colony was managed by Governor John Endicott.
Early Salem Streets Are Established
In 1628, the English redeveloped their settlement at Naumkeag following Endicott's arrival to be something quite different than a huddle of thatch-roofed cottages along the North River, which it first was under Conant, Gardner and others. Under Endicott's direction, it appears the entire Naumkeag peninsula between the North and South Rivers was established more as a large fort or as a military encampment.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Salem's Witch House"
by .
Copyright © 2009 John Goff.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Author's Note,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
Chapter 1. Ancient Beginnings: Before 1626,
Chapter 2. First Period Puritans: 1626–1674,
Chapter 3. Troubling Times: 1675–1691,
Chapter 4. Intense Events and the Illusions of 1692,
Chapter 5. Colonial Kingdoms,
Chapter 6. Forging an American Identity,
Chapter 7. The Colonial Revival Comes of Age,
Chapter 8. Two Influential Architects of the 1930s: Walter Kilham and Samuel Chamberlain,
Chapter 9. Preservation Crises and Restoring the Witch House in the 1940s,
Chapter 10. The Witch House Today,
Appendix: Known Biographical Information on Some of the Key Witch House Preservationists of the 1940s,
Notes,
Bibliography,
About the Author,