Our anniversary falls on Memorial Weekend so this past Friday we celebrated it with drinks and dinner in Newburyport, after which we walked around the foggy old town and came across a pirate ship, with a party on board. This was El Galeón, a Spanish reconstruction of a sixteenth-century galleon, which is apparently sailing up and down the eastern U.S. coast this summer. Somehow we didn’t know she was going to be in Newburyport, but there she was, and quite a sight to see. This is a ship from my period, so I was thrilled, and determined to make it back to see her in daylight. The weekend was busy, and so I didn’t manage this until late yesterday. In broad daylight El Galeón was still pretty impressive in its details, and bigger than I thought such a ship might be, but perhaps not quite as magical as she appeared on Friday: much less fog, no costumed party-goers on board, and I suppose alcohol might have colored my previous view a bit. But I had wanted to head north to Newbury and Newburyport anyway, to explore some Moses Little territory as a follow-up to my last post, and these towns are so packed with beautiful old houses they are always worth a trip, even on a busy holiday weekend.
Driving through Newbury, I always stop to admire the Knight-Short House (built c. 1723) with its brick sides.
El Galeón in port, day and night. Then I was off to see more houses.
I don’t think Revolutionary War soldiers get the attention they deserve in terms of commemoration–on Memorial Day and every day. There is insufficient or nonexistent appreciation of their suffering and their sacrifice, certainly here in Salem, where our most prominent statues pay tribute to a “planter”, a diplomat, a temperance leader, Hawthorne, and a fictional television witch. There are monuments to those who served in the Civil War and World War I and II, but I’ve always wondered why the Salem men who served in the Revolutionary War have received so little recognition–beyond their individual graves, most of which do not even reference their service. Maybe that’s why. These were men who served and then came back home with little fanfare and recognition: quiet, anonymous men for the most part, with the exception of the perplexing Timothy Pickering and dashing privateers like Jonathan Haraden. Both Pickering and Haraden are buried in the Broad Street Cemetery behind my house, and I walked over there very early this morning to look upon their graves, as well as those of their comrades. By all accounts, there are nine veterans of the Revolutionary War buried in the Broad Street Cemetery, but only Pickering’s and Haraden’s graves are marked with flags.
Not far from the Pickering graves is a single dark stone marking the grave of Joshua Cross, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and his wife Lydia Derby Cross, both of whom died on May 24: he in 1829 and she in 1837. I have long appreciated this marker: it stands alone, in excellent condition, and it does refer to his service (but still no flag: I have planted one in past years and will this year too). According to his pension application, Cross served in the “Massachusetts Line” for only one year–from January 1776 until January 1777–and did not rise above the rank of Private, but the details of his service indicate that he might have seen some action! Here is his story, in his own words:
I, Joshua Cross of Salem in the County of Essex and Commonwealth of Massachusetts on solemn oath declare that I enlisted into the service of the late United Colonies, in the Revolutionary War, on the Continental establishment, in the month of January in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy six as a private soldier in the Company then under the command of Ensign Gould and called General Lee’s life guard, said company belonging to the____ Regiment of the Massachusetts line, under the command of Col. Little that I continued in the service of the said United Colonies until the month of January in the year seventeen hundred and seventy seven, when my term of service expired, and returned home–I have no recollection of having received my discharge in writing, and believe it was not usual at that time to give such discharges–and further declare aforesaid that from reduced circumstances I need the assistance of my country for support.
This statement gives us enough information to place Cross in Colonel Moses Little’s 12th Continental Regiment, which saw action in the Siege of Boston, on Long Island, and at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton during his service. It’s a bit confusing, because I think our Joshua has been confused with a “Joseph Cross” in Volume 4 of Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War. A Compilation from the Archives (1898), and I know that this particular “life guard” of General [Charles] Lee under the command of Ensign [Benjamin] Gould made it to New York but I’m not quite sure about New Jersey. But it’s quite possible that our humble Salem housewright, with no flag by his grave, served at Trenton and Princeton alongside General Washington. But you think he would have mentioned that!
Broad Street Cemetery, Salem, Memorial Day Weekend 2016
Summer has come to Salem over the last few days and everything is very green–and white, the perfect colors of renewal. The viburnum is so dominant this time of year, but so are spirea and white dogwoods, along with azaleas, deutzias and lilacs. And those are just the shrubs and trees: you can look up, down, and over and see a trail of white just about everywhere at this time of year. The Peirce-Nichols garden has a field of pink bleeding-hearts, but just a few steps away at the Ropes Mansion are my favorite white ones (my own, sadly, did not come back this year), along with beautiful border of white irises. I’m off to replace my bleeding hearts (if I can find the white ones–pink are far more plentiful) and look for some new shrubs for the perimeter of my garden, as I am very tired of my boring forsythias as well as a sad espaliered crab-apple tree. I am open to suggestions: not just for white-flowering shrubs, but no pink please!
Green, (black) and white around Salem, late May 2016.
Oddly enough, I was thinking about caterpillars before the big Tudor revelation of last week: the confirmation that a lavishly embroidered cloth-of-silver altar cloth in a small church in Herefordshire was fashioned from a dress which might have belonged to Elizabeth I. The cloth was discovered by Historic Royal Palaces Joint Chief Curator Tracy Borman, who has included it in her newly-released book, The Private Lives of the Tudors. Uncovering the Secrets of Britain’s Greatest Dynasty. Apparently Elizabeth had a reputation for casting-off her clothing to favorites, and her faithful servant Blanche Parry hailed from Bracton, the small village where this luxurious cloth has been hanging for over 400 years. The photographs of the cloth, particularly close-ups, show familiar Elizabethan flora and fauna (in a pattern that does indeed look very familiar to that of the dress which Elizabeth wears in the famous “Rainbow” portrait), including a rather conspicuous caterpillar hovering over a bear.
The Herefordshire altar cloth (@Historic Royal Palaces) and a fitted jacked from a bit later (c. 1616) featuring a caterpillar among a world of flora and fauna, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
So why was I thinking about caterpillars in general and Elizabethan caterpillars in particular? For the usual mix of scholarly/materialistic reasons. I am prepping for my summer graduate course on Elizabethan England, while at the same time spring cleaning the house and indulging in a bit of seasonal decoration, which for me means swapping out Spring rabbits for Summer bugs and snails: I had just replaced a John Derian glass tray featuring a card-dealing rabbit with one bearing a colorful caterpillar when I read the news about the Herefordshire discovery. And I’m rereading one of my favorite books, Deborah Harkness’s The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution which captures perfectly the dynamic world of fledgling naturalists and “scientists” in later-sixteenth century London. Harkness is probably better known for her fictional bestsellers of the past few years but for me, this is her jewel. I really had a hard time conveying to my students just how focused Elizabethans were on the natural world before it was published; certainly you can see–they can see– this preoccupation in Tudor decorative arts, and most particularly textiles, but I’m hoping that Harkness will really bring it home to them.
John Derian’s caterpillar tray & Deborah Harkness’s The Jewel House.
So back to the caterpillar, which is such a distinctive creature in terms of both appearance and activity: it transforms and consumes, dramatically. Which quality determined their metaphorical characterization in Elizabethan England? Definitely the latter: when Shakespeare writes of a commonwealth of caterpillars in Richard II, he is referring to devouring parasites whom Bolingbroke has sworn “to weed and pluck away”. Another Shakespearian reference is to falsecaterpillars in Henry IV, Part 2: a rebellious group of “scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentleman” who (once again) are preying on the people: prey, “pill”, pillage: the caterpillar is hardly the wondrous creature of the first British entomologists Thomas Penny and Thomas Moffett, who maintained a more empirical perspective. The latter’s great work (which is largely based on the former!), InsectorumsiveMinimorumanimaliumtheatrum (posthumously published in 1634), is more focused on metamorphosis than munching.
Thomas Moffett’s Insectorum sive Minimorum animalium theatrium (1634–but largely based on Thomas Penny’s 500-page manuscript from the 1590s).
A very busy day yesterday, with Salem State’s commencement in the morning and the commencement of the Derby Square Flea salvage Art Market in the afternoon. There is very little to tie these two events together besides my attendance (and that of a few other people) but at the end of the day I was left with a lasting impression not only of commencement but also of creativity, on the part of both graduates and vendors! I’m going to spare you all of my graduation pictures but I wanted to showcase just a few of the extremely creative mortarboards on display at the morning graduation ceremony–I’ve really seen the practice of embellishing mortarboards explode over the last few years and this year it seemed like there were more than ever: the usual glitter and flowers and family names but also more inventive and inspirational projections (or recollections?) Below are two creations of new History grads, who I am very partial to of course, but it seemed to me that each and every discipline was well represented by this trend.
And on to the market…..which was obviously a huge success. Great vendors–lots of vintage collectibles and clothing, art, and up-cycled creations. It seemed to me that there was a lot of quality vintage hardware and textiles–the latter cleaned and pressed to perfection. I was a bit bleary from the morning’s festivities so was not really the purposeful picker that I generally am at these venues, but I did buy a very nice painting and marshaled all of my remaining strength to take some pictures. I’m sure that I will be back to form for the next market: on June 18.
Here we have a proud vendor standing in the very same spot that her grandfather (on the right) had his stall when Derby Square was a food market!
Very eclectic offerings.
The cars were not for sale but the books were–WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER! The pioneering tale of romantic Tudorism: I would have picked this up, but I already have four or five copies, I think.
This coming weekend several friends of mine, three ladies who are clever and creative and fierce hunter-gatherers all, are launching a new endeavor, the Derby Square FLEA Salvage ART Market, a monthly pop-up venue featuring equally creative vendors of art, vintage and salvaged goods in both original and up-cycled form. The Market will be held every third Saturday from May through September in Salem’s venerable marketplace, Derby Square. For this first Market, there will be 23 vendors, all displaying their wares under perfect white tents, along with music and classic cars, befitting May’s launching theme of rev your engines. If you visit their wonderful website, you will see that each monthly market has its own theme, including July’s bicentennial in recognition of the anniversary of the Derby family’s donation to Salem of the land previously occupied by their majestic Bulfinch mansion (with the proviso that it remain commercial space). So this Market, like the weekly Farmer’s Market and all the enterprises along the adjacent Salem Marketplace across Front Street, honors the city’s past and present.
Derby Square FSA is an invitation-only venture: these ladies have been “shopping” for their vendors for a year! There will be no witch kitsch in Derby Square on these summer Saturdays: think Brimfield rather than Haunted Happenings. Their vendors are listed on the website and the Market’s Facebook page, and I picked out a few representative items for a preview. I was happy to hear that my friend and neighbor Racket Shreve, a noted marine artist, will be selling cards and prints on Saturday, from the back of his 1962 Willys Jeep (most appropriately).
Vintage handkerchiefs from Verve Design, Globe light from House of Champigny, Chair by 8 by Design (before it got a great seat), Soap from My Sweet Soap, Jewelry maker Ashley Procopio’s perfect packaging, Racket Shreve’s studio.
Like so many events and organizations in Salem (excluding all the witchcraft profiteers, of course), Derby Square FSA is a labor of love for the city and all it has to offer. Of course its organizers (who are again, full disclosure, my friends) are operating an enterprise, but they are also offering a service and a resource. Again, let me direct you to the amazing website which offers up a wealth of information not only about the Market but also about Salem: it should be bookmarked by visitors and residents alike. I’ll let them speak for themselves as they explain their vision for the transformation of Derby Square, the “heart of the city”, into a: a vital marketplace which showcases and connects what Salem is known for around the world–art and beautiful old things in a vintage American city.
Derby Square: 1855 (from Harper’s New Monthly Magazine), circa 1910, and this past weekend.
Derby Square FLEA salvage ART, a monthly pop-up market. Third Saturdays 10-5, May-September, Derby Square, Salem, Massachusetts, commencing MAY21!
For me, the most haunted place in Salem is not a cemetery or anything to do with the Witch Trials (though it is quite near Harmony Grove Cemetery and Gallows Hill): it is Blubber Hollow, a site of intensive manufacturing and industrial activities from the seventeenth century until the later twentieth. The center of Salem’s bustling leather industry in the later nineteenth century, this was where the Great Salem Fire started in June of 1914, in a factory producing patent leather shows on the site of the present-day Walgreens on Boston Street (behind which is is Proctor’s Ledge, now confirmed as the execution site of the victims of 1692). Its name indicates that it was also associated with the production of whale oil, but for me it always conjures up an image of frenzied commercial activity, candles burning at both ends or oil lamps burning all night. No longer: those factories that survived the 1914 fire, or were built after, are empty for the most part, and coming down soon, as Blubber Hollow transitions from ghost town into residential neighborhood: one large apartment building has already been built and there are more to come. As you walk down Grove Street towards Goodhue, past the still-busy Moose Lodge and marijuana dispensary, the sense of imminent transformation is palpable but ghosts are still present.
Relic smokestack.
Texture at one of the former Salem Oil and Grease buildings, and the North River Canal.
No one will be sorry to see Flynntan go.
Past and Future: Blubber Hollow in its heyday and “Hose House” No. 4 in its midst, from Fred A. Gannon’s Old Salem Scrapbook, #6 (1900); North River Luxury Apartmentst @ 28 Goodhue Street.
I was fortunate to be at the House of the Seven Gables on this past Thursday, which really felt the first day of Spring in Salem: sunny, breezy, glorious. The Gables garden is always lovely, but on this day it looked stunning, and Mrs. Emmerton’s favorite lilacs and the wisteria arbor hadn’t even popped yet! The setting helps–the stark buildings of the Gables campus and Salem Harbor make perfect backdrops–but I think the structure makes this garden: I’m a sucker for raised beds and diagonal paths. This was the essential design that architect Joseph Everett Chandler laid out during the Gables’ restoration/recreation at the beginning of the twentieth century, although this structure seems overwhelmed by vibrant plantings in the many “garden view” postcards of the House published in the first half of the twentieth century. In any case, the garden is much more the creation of noted landscape architect and Salem native (and lifelong resident) Daniel J. Foley, a 1935 graduate of the University of Massachusetts who went on to become the editor of Horticulture magazine, the author of scores of books and articles on various aspect of gardening, a broadcaster, and long-time steward of the Gables garden, which is a living memorial to his life and work. From the 1960s, Foley enhanced the structure of the garden with mature boxwoods, and reinforced its colonial ambiance with period plants. In several of his writings, Foley reveals the inspiration that “old Salem gardens” had on his craft and his career: when I first began to explore the plant realm, I remember a visit I made one warm afternoon in June was to an old Salem garden where sweet William and foxgloves, delphiniums and Canterbury bells, ferns and sweet rocket and a host of other plants flourished in a series of meandering borders (1933). This is exactly the sense of time and place that pervades the Gables garden today.
The Gables Garden c. 1900, before Chandler’s raised beds, and in the 1950s, before Mr. Foley’s stewardship; Mr. Foley in a 1955 photograph and the first of his bestselling garden books–this one seems to have been constantly in print for over 20 years!
And the garden on this past Thursday: tulips just going out, lilacs just coming in, wisteria arbor, amazing Solomon’s Seal which the camera can’t quite capture……
The house and the view of the garden from the house, resident cat, on the way out…
I had a pear-oriented day yesterday. I was trying to work on the syllabus for my upcoming graduate course on Elizabethan England as well as the three-semester schedule for our department’s course offerings. Both are rather tedious tasks so I was taking regular breaks and roaming (both digitally and literally) away for bouts of time. I always like to have an “inspirational image” on my syllabi, and under the pretense of looking for one I spent hours examining Elizabethan portraits. Hours. Who is this, where are they, what are they holding, why are they dressed that way? Then I would feel guilty and go back to the syllabus and the schedule. Then I would take another break and go outside and see what’s popped up in my garden, ride my bike, play with my cats, and come inside and scope out lots in upcoming auctions, between loads of laundry and stabs at my syllabus and schedule. So you see the rhythm of my day, and by the end of this day of searching for Elizabethan images and secreting away from my schedule I ended up fixated on a pair of pears (or two pairs of pears really).
Anonymous follow of William Larkin, Three Young Girls, c. 1620, Berger Collection, Denver Art Museum; Donald Sultan, Pears screenprint from Fruit, Flowers and a Fish, 1989-91, published by Parasol Press, Ltd., New York, Skinner Auctions.
The painting of the three girls is not even Elizabethan–it dates from a bit later. But look at these girls, so beautiful and so ready, but for what? To greet an eminent visitor? To assume command of the household upon the death of their mother? The ripe fruit held by the older two might represent their maturity (and fecundity) while the younger girl is still “playing” with dolls–is this one a representation of Queen Elizabeth? I’m quite preoccupied with this painting: apparently lots of research remains to be done on both its projection(s) and its painter. Sultan’s pears appeal to me aesthetically, though I don’t have any questions about them (such is my reaction to much modern art). In their craftsmanship and detail they do, however, remind me of a very famous Salem pear: Samuel McIntire’s carving of an exemplar pear grown in Ipswich first captured by his contemporary, artist Michele Felice Corné.
Pear model by Samuel McIntire, 1802-1811, after a painting by MicheleFelice Corné, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem.
I don’t feel like I have to draw Salem connections to every topic I write about here, but sometimes I can’t help it! Salem actually plays a very big role in pomological history as it prospered at a time when pears were much, much, much more important than mere apples, or any other tree fruit. More generally, Salem’s horticultural history is another example of its heritage that gets completely overshadowed by the giant Witch Trials. From Governor Endecott’s pear tree, planted around 1630 and still standing in nearby Danvers (then Salem–read a very complete history here), to the nearly as old and much commented-upon orange pear tree on the Hardy Street property of Captain William Allen, to the popular colonial pear cider, or “perry” made from Salem fruit, to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s grandfather Robert Manning’s vast “Pomological Garden” in North Salem, it is very evident that pears were popular, and perceived as representative of both Salem’s productivity and longevity. In a report on the Horticultural Exhibition held at the Essex Institute in 1850, the Horticultural Review and Botantical Magazine noted that this Salem must be a wonderful place for longevity. While we are boasting of our pears that begin to bear on bushes, three or four years old, these Salemites claim nearly as many centuries for some of theirs.
1910 postcard of the Endecott Pear Tree, Danvers; a pair of Buffum pears, one of the hundreds of varieties grown at Robert Manning’s “Pomological Garden” on Dearborn Street in the mid-19th century, from D.M. Dewey’s The nurseryman’s pocket specimen book : colored from nature : fruits, flowers, ornamental trees, shrubs, roses, &c (1872).
P.S. I did finish the syllabus, but not the schedule.
My guilty pleasure-reward for making it through this particular semester is indulgence in a few Austen-esque books: Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible and Among the Janeites: A Journey through the World of Jane Austen Fandom by Deborah Yaffe. Eligible updates Pride and Prejudice by removing the story of Elizabeth and Darcy and their plot-driving families to the suburbs of Cincinnati, where they encounter complications brought on not only by their pride, prejudice, and genteel poverty, but also by a range of modern challenges (and opportunities): everything from artificial insemination to anorexia to a reality television wedding extravaganza. I think I got most of the updating, although I’m not quite sure of the significance of the spider infestation in the Bennet Tudor (Revival). Eligible is the fourth adaptation of HarperCollins’ Austen Project, which has commissioned contemporary authors to “reimagine” six Austen novels: I’ve also read Joanna Trollope’s Sense and Sensibility and am looking forward to the reimagined Persuasion, my favorite Austen. The Austen Project apparently aims not only to update but also to upgrade the usual Austen fan fiction genre, which has produced countless titles since Colin Firth/Darcy emerged from the Pemberley lake in the iconic 1995 BBC miniseries.
British covers of Trolloppe’s Sense and Sensibility and Sittenfeld’s Eligible; my stack of real and inspired Austens; my favorite recent editions, from the Folio Society.
I’m not quite sure that I represent the target audience for all these Austen adaptations, even though I was right there, holding my breath, when Elizabeth encountered a damp Colin/Darcy striding from the lake. I’m probably too old or too traditional or both: while I got Clueless and Bridget Jones’s Diary, I didn’t really understand the point of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in either text or film form. But I am really interested in the culture–and the economy–of “Janeitism” because it seems like a very vibrant one, offering up many new and varied products every year. I haven’t started Yaffe’s Among the Janeites yet (I’ve been too busy with Eligible) but I’m hoping it will give me lots of insights into this world. You would think that the word “Janeite” is a new one, but actually it goes all the way back to the first big revival of her works, following the publication of her nephew’s Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869, which inspired the appearance of several illustrated and introduced editions in the 1890s. From then on, it wasn’t quite the Austenworld that we live in now, but she was regularly in print (you can see a nice succession of Pride and Prejudice covers here) and occasionally on the screen. Austen adaptations have clearly surpassed those mediums in the twenty-first century, and I can’t help but wonder, what would Jane think?
Stills from Austenland (2013), which was not very good, Death Comes to Pemberley (2015), which was quite good, and a film opening this week, Love & Friendship, based on Austen’s posthumously-published epistolary novel, Lady Susan; Jane thinking, illustration from the 2013 Folio Society edition of Pride and Prejudiceby the Anna and Elena Balbusso.
The Herefordshire altar cloth (@Historic Royal Palaces) and a fitted jacked from a bit later (c. 1616) featuring a caterpillar among a world of flora and fauna, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
John Derian’s caterpillar tray & Deborah Harkness’s The Jewel House.
