Category Archives: Culture

December 27, 2022

Anniversary History: Local Edition 2023

By daseger

Looking ahead to the new year from a local history perspective, there are commemorative moments for at least six events: five European settlements and a tea party, the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, to be precise. A century and a half earlier, there were settlements at Gloucester, Massachusetts and Portsmouth, Rye (the Pannaway Plantation) and Dover (the Cocheco Plantation), New Hampshire. The ill-prepared and -fated Wessagusset Colony was established in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1622 but its demise came the following year after the brutal Wessagusett “Incident,” more appropriately referred to as a massacre. Commemorative history should acknowledge both the good and the bad, the heroic and the tragic, the kind and the cruel, and so the Wessagusett Massacre of March 1623, a veritable “red wedding” which harmed relations between Native Americans and English settlers for years to come, demands a spotlight. Like the first Gloucester settlement by the Dorchester Company, Wessagusett was decidedly not a plantation in the seventeenth-century sense, but rather a fishing and trading station of 60+ men financed by London merchant Thomas Weston. “Weston’s Men” were completely unprepared for the New World and by the winter of 1622-1623 they were starving, and altogether dependent on both Plymouth and the Native Americans in the region. But foodstuffs were scarce for everyone that winter, and everyone was anxious. Rumors of an impending Native American raid on both settlements drove the Wessagusett men to seek aid from Plymouth, and militia leader Myles Standish and eight men sailed a shallop to the northern settlement and issued an invitation to Massachusett tribal leaders Pecksuot, Wituwamat, and others to attend a summit during which commenced a slaughter just as they all sat down to dinner. I’m going to let Charles Francis Adams tell the tale, as he presented it in his anniversary address on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Weymouth: the savages were taken by surprise, but they fought hard, making little noise but catching at their weapons and struggling until they were cut almost to pieces. Finally Pecksuot, Wituwamat and a third Indian were killed; while a fourth, a youth of eighteen, was overpowered and secured; him, Standish subsequently hung. The massacre, for such in historic justice it must be called, seeing that they killed every man they could lay their hands on, then began. There were eight warriors in the stockade at the time,—Standish and his party had killed three and secured one; they suddenly killed another while the Weston people despatched two more. Only one escaped to give the alarm, which spread rapidly through the Indian villages. Interesting language for 1873: savages is employed, but Adams does not refrain from calling this slaughter a “massacre” unlike many of his contemporaries who labeled it a pre-emptive strike. Several Wessagusset men also died during the massacre, and the rest opted to abandon the settlement; Standish returned to Plymouth with the head of Wituwamat on a pike in ancient English warrior fashion, “to ornament the Plymouth block-house as a terror to all evil-disposed savages” in the words of Adams. This massacre seems worthy of a bit more commemorative reflection, at least a fraction of what the Boston Massacre receives continuously.

“The Return of Myles Standish from Wessagusset,” from Pioneers in the settlement of America: from Florida in 1510 to California in 1849 by William August Crafts, 1876. Ironically, nearly 300 years later (299!) Myles Standish lost his head when the Standish monument in Duxbury was struck by lightning: according to this post by Carolyn Ravenscroft, archivist of the Duxbury Rural and Historical Society, his replacement head was too heavy for the damaged “body,” so an entirely new Standish was created by Boston sculptor John Horrigon, pictured here in 1930.

I’m not sure what the plans for the commemoration of the Wessagusset Massacre are but all the early settlements have been planning their 400th anniversaries for quite some time, particularly Gloucester, which has assembled a multi-layered calendar of commemorative initiatives and offerings focused overwhelmingly on the city’s social history. I’ve been so impressed with the “400 Stories” project, which aims to collect, present and preserve stories from 400 of Gloucester’s residents from 1623 to 2023, thus connecting the past to the present. There are books, an artistic competition for a new commemorative medal, walking tours, festivals, and a gala: the evolving celebratory schedule is at Gloucester 400.

Portsmouth is all geared up too, although its big reveal party is on January 6 so I don’t know all the details. The PortsmouthNH400 site is here, and so far its signature product is a lovely book, A History of Portsmouth NH in 101 Objects, to which both my Salem State History colleague Tad Baker and alum Alyssa Conary have contributed. There’s an ongoing speakers’ series and exhibition based on the book, and on January 6 Portsmouth’s Memorial Bridge will be illuminated in blue, PortsmouthNH400th’s commemorative color. Like Gloucester, Portsmouth is also collecting stories (of 400 words) from its residents, to be compiled in a commemorative book designed to update its 350th anniversary history. Rye and Dover also have their 400th anniversary committees and calendars, derived from considerable public participation: the mission of Dover400 is “to honor our past, celebrate our present, and to inspire our future through meaningful and creative community engagement.”

The 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party is going to be big: after all, from the Boston perspective, it was “the single most important event leading up to the American Revolution.” I’m excited about all of the offerings by Revolutionary Spaces at the Old South Meeting House and the Old State House, including an exhibition on the power of petitions, an “immersive theatrical experience,” and various programs on the nature and expression of protest. Of course the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum has plans as well, and is already counting down to the big reenactment on December 16, 1773. And there will be merch, including lots of commemorative tea.

Teas from Elmwood Inn & Oliver Pluff & Co.

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December 11, 2022

Christmas Shopping in Salem: the Macabre and the Merry

By daseger

I try to shop local whenever possible: compared to decades past, it’s not difficult as Salem seems to have become as much of a shopping destination as a dining one. But you’ve got to pick a side: goth or gleeful? dark or bright? macabre or merry? Krampus or Santa Claus? Because of the ever-increasing exploitation of the tragedy of 1692 and its contrived connection to Halloween, “witchy” shops, an aesthetic very broadly defined in Salem, have proliferated over the past few years, reaching the level of self-sustaining demand. This article asserts that Salem has become an “alt fashion hotspot” for those seeking gothic garb, and explains the supply and the demand far better than I can! Maybe you can have it both ways—there are certainly some Salem shops that manage to merge the macabre and the merry quite creatively—but with a list consisting of babies and mostly middle-aged people, I’m squarely in the Merry Christmas camp.

It’s difficult to take photographs of shop windows in the daytime, but Witch City Consignment’s windows represent Salem Christmas shopping well: all is bright but there are looming monsters!

So let’s take a walk down Essex Street from the Witch House to the Hawthorne Hotel and I’ll point out some of my favorite shops along the way and on the side streets. Remember my “merry” bias: this is not an all-inclusive tour! I’m so down on witch-kitschiness that I’ve sworn not to patronize businesses that even have “Witch City” in the name, but I have to make occasional exceptions. I can’t resist Witch City Consignment: there’s so much to see and buy there, though generally I end up buying more things for myself rather than friends or family. I can’t resist the Salem stuff and right now I’m into “apothecariana” or whatever you call it: I love these turn-of-century gold-lablel pharmacy bottles and they are on sale! Witch City Wicks across the way has great candles: I’ve been buying them from the pre-brick-and-mortar days. This section of Essex Street is pretty gothy with the looming Vampfangs and the new Blackcraft, a southern California company which transformed a Colonial Revival bank building into an all-black emporium with a red witch descending from the center ceiling medallion. I skipped the former and went into the latter, for a very brief spell. There’s a lot of black in the store, but very little craft: strictly made in China as far as I could tell. On to Town House Square past the Christmas Tree in Lappin Park.

Witch City Consignment wares; nice to see the cheery windows of the Gulu-Gulu Cafe after I left Blackcraft.

I craved more craft and more merry after Blackcraft, so I headed right for a trio of shops on the corner of Washington and Front Streets owned by a very creative and entrepreneurial couple: the brand new Spruce Home, Oak+Moss, and Roost & Company. Much shopping ensued: these shops have something for everyone, and their wares are unique yet usable, tactile and textural, both decorative and utilitarian. I scooped up napkin rings and onesies, managed to resist all manner of cocktail culture, but had to have my very own merry & bright banner!

Spruce Home and Oak+Moss.

There is great shopping on Front Street (particularly at J.Mode for women’s clothing) which runs paralell to Essex on either side of Derby Square, but I did so well at the Spruce/Oak/Roost triumvirate that I headed straight for Emporium 32 on Central, before getting back on Essex. Here we have the curation of yet another creative couple, who have packed their tin-ceilinged shop with more whimsical wares, including nostalgic Christmas decorations, jewelry, prints, very visual books, barware and outerware. It’s a great accessory shop, and also a wonderful place to shop for men with hats, gloves, and shaving stuff galore. Plus it’s just a merry place, which always cheers you up, no matter the season (and they always have the best windows, in every season). At this point, I have to admit that I had my husband with me and we had nearly reached his shopping capacity, so it was time to break for lunch at the tavern at the Hawthorne Hotel (and drinks, of course: I had this delicious blood orange & bourbon cocktail, below). 1925, the latest venture from the Emporium entrepreneurs, will be opening in the corner shop of the Hotel in the new year.

Shopping at Emporium 32 and drinks (+ food and a pointsettia Christmas tree) at the Hawthorne Hotel.

With sustenance, my husband declared he could do two more shops and no more, so we set off for the Peabody Essex Museum shop and Diehl–Marcus & Company, a lovely store located in a Bulfinch building almost across from Emporium 32 on Central Street. Even when I was furious with the PEM for removing the Phillips Library to Rowley (five years ago!) I still shopped in its lovely shop: its buyers have always found the best things. This particular year, the PEM shop seems to have embraced all things Salem, commissioning little wooden replicas of all of its buildings from The Cat’s Meow. I want them all and I couldn’t possibly choose, so I “settled” for some Ropes Mansion placemats, among other items. There’s no question that more damage would have been done if my husband wasn’t with me, and I will have to return to do some actual shopping for others. It does seem a bit odd to me to be featuring all these buildings that are not presently open to the public, particularly the empty Plummer Hall, long home to the Phillips Library, and its adjoining and also-dark Daland House: maybe these little houses are a sign of future openings?

All the PEM houses! The Museum even installed a ye olde Salem Christmas neighborhood in the windows of one of its empty storefronts on Essex Street.

After Diehl–Marcus, my husband dropped out and I was on my own in the shops of Church Street and at Pickering Wharf: the former is a sparkling street of signs while the latter is looking a bit shopworn, I must admit (no fault of the shopowners but rather of their landlord, of course). But I always like to buy a few things at the Marble Faun at the Wharf, a book and gift shop for anglophiles and Hawthorne-philes (more books at the PEM shop and Wicked Good Books on Essex Street), and I knew that Joe’s Fish Prints had some cute coffee cups which would work for everyone on my list except the babies.

Candles (+ great tea and soap and lots of other things) at Diehl-Marcus, fish impressions at Pickering Wharf, very pretty hand-crafted jewelry at Jenni Stuart Fine Jewelry and more apothecary bottles at Hive and Forge/Red Antler Pharmacy. This combined and eclectic shop also features a lot of taxidermy, so be forewarned if that’s not your thing, but also the crafts of 30+ makers.

I realize that my shopping guide is a bit late and long, but I’d like to mention a few online local makers and sellers as well: please add more in the comments!

Kamillascrochet for cute hats, made very speedily.

JandJGraphicsLLC for merry and bright calendars with local scenes.

EVArtandDesign for merry and bright “windows of Salem” digital illustrations.

Chloesgoodstuff for cat drawings.

WidowsWeedsAntiques for interesting ephemera.

 

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November 26, 2022

Deerfield Thanksgiving

By daseger

I know that it was a back-to-big-family-Thanksgiving for many people, but because of health and almost-conflicting family events my husband and I found ourselves alone this year. We made a last-minute decision to head to Historic Deerfield, where we stayed at the Inn for two nights and had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner at the Inn at Boltwood (previously the Lord Jeffrey Inn) in Amherst. We ran into old Salem friends and made new Pennsylvania friends at the Deerfield bar, walked around and in as many of those magnificent houses as we could, and “played” in the attic of the Flynt Center for Early American Life. I have under-appreciated this experience on past visits: there was something about this particular visit that made the “visible storage” of all sorts of items from Historic Deerfield’s collections—everything from ceramics to muskets to wrought iron, in multiples—so very engaging. Maybe it’s because we had this “attic” to ourselves. My husband and I have very different tastes, but he could be over there in the realm of metal-working tools while I was lingering in mocha ware, both of us content. We left the attic only because the weather was so beautiful: clear and sunny and bright, casting all those Connecticut River Valley doorways in stark relief.

Historic Deerfield has always been an exploration of maker/craft culture as much as architecture so a focus on objects on this particular visit seemed correct: I’ve always been too dazzled by the houses to take in the Deerfield-made baskets, famous blue-and-white embroidery pieces and pottery to take proper note of them in situ. Before there was Historic Deerfield, there was Arts and Crafts Deerfield, a haven and destination for traditional crafts and preservation at the turn of the last century, and before then there was of course colonial Deerfield: you can see and feel the layers as you walk down Old Main Street. We had the neighborhood to ourselves as we took a long walk on Thanksgiving morning, so we looked in a lot of windows and hung out in back amongst the barns.

A walk down Old Main Street from South to North and then back towards the Inn: village map with house names and dates.

A recent addition to Old Main Street are the Witness Stone markers laid before every house in which an enslaved person live and worked: these were installed just last month in partnership with the Connecticut-based Witness Stones Project. So there’s another layer uncovered and exposed. Museum neighborhoods can feel a bit static and fixed in time, but I’ve never felt that way about Historic Deerfield: rather it has always seems like an engaging mix of past and present or a cumulative work in progress to me. At the same time, time moves slower there: just turn off Route 5 for an hour or a day or two and catch your breath, take a walk, or rummage around in an attic.

Witness (to slavery) stones, a work in progress, and a signpost right in the midst of Deerfield Academy.

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November 21, 2022

Daniel Low and the Art of Advertising

By daseger

Very often, one of Salem’s longest-running and best-known businesses, Daniel Low & Company, is reduced to a pioneering seller of witch wares with their souvenir witch spoons and other “memorabilia” issued before, during and well after the very important Bicentennial of the Witch Trials in 1892. It all started with a spoon, say the proponents of witchcraft tourism, long ago: we didn’t start it! And they are not wrong: the Company certainly sold its share of witch spoons, plates, dishes, thimbles, scissors, and more unusual items like “penwipers”. But Daniel Low & Co was also a Salem institution for over a century: evolving from its jewelry and silver foundations to a major purveyor of all manner of decorative accessories for the home over its long history (1867-1994). It “sold Salem” in more ways than one: if you visited its landmark store, situated in Salem’s most historic square in the former site of its First Church, you would see not only floors of display cases but also “unique antique rooms” featuring reproductions of Salem’s more traditional products; if you ordered from the annual Daniel Low year book you would receive a receipt bearing an illustration of an historic Salem structure as well as a copy of the company pamphlet The Salem Pilgrim. 

You could write a book entirely on Daniel Low’s advertising methods and campaigns: there’s just so much information and copy. The company advertised both locally and nationally: to support both its wondrous store and its annual year book, issued from the 1890s into the 1960s (I think—I can’t find the end date). But it’s not just the means by which Daniel Low reached out and reached in to homes across America, it’s the messaging. The store’s advertising philosophy was expressed in a number of speeches and articles by Robert R. Updegraff, its manager of publicity, from the teens into the thirties. Everything I read by Updegraff, who seems to have been a pioneering practicioner of the new “art” of advertising, reminded me of Don Draper’s Kodak carousel pitch in Mad Men: aim for the heart, and treat your customers like neighbors. Only a year into his job, Mr. Updegraff summarized his pitch and his profession in a serialized article entitled “The Story of the Year”:  One thing is sure, the advertising man who is to be the real power in the future will be the man who stops thinking in terms of type and borders and magazines and billboards and street car cards and printing presses and halftones. He will think in terms of neighborliness and life. He will write simple, sincere, friendly messages to these neighbors of his. He will think and write in terms of ideas, emotions, experiences, merely using words as vehicles to convey his message and printing presses to multiply it. He will use illustrations only when they tell the story better than the same amount of space used in words. His advertisements will be efficient because they are sincere and have the beauty of truth. And they will be effective. [Macleans magazine, September 1913]. Updegraff believed that Salem’s past could be utilized to emphasize sincerity and exemplify the “beauty of truth”: not its witch-trial past but rather a more hopeful, gilded, and gentle “old Salem.” In a 1914 article in Printers’ Ink he elaborates on how the imagery of truly Colonial Salem conveyed an atmospheric sincerity in the Daniel Low Year Books which began offering “glimpses of old Salem” from that time until the 1950s.

A half-century of Daniel Low & Co. Year Books: from Historic New England, Salem State University Archives and Special Collections Flickr photostream, Harvard University Digital Collections and my own collection.

Glimpses of Old Salem was a constant, but not Daniel Low’s exclusive pitch: it aimed to be a traditional-yet-modern “Treasure House” too, a phrase that was adopted by the Essex Institute and applied to all of Salem from the mid-century: before Witch City crowded out all other messaging at its close.

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November 8, 2022

Remembering the Revolution: Two Caleb Footes

By daseger

For this Veterans Day 2022 the stories of two Salem men named Caleb Foote: grandfather (1750-1787) and grandson (1803-1894). But there’s a shadow of another man in this post too, a young lieutenant named Benjamin West, the sole Salem casualty of the Battle of Bunker Hill. The younger Caleb Foote is the link between the other two men: a prominent newspaper editor and publisher, he also dedicated himself to the remembrance of both his grandfather, a privateer and prisoner of war who left behind quite a revolutionary record, as well as his great uncle, who did not. Their conjoined histories are a great reminder of both the sacrifices made by the first American veterans and the commitments that their descendants made to their memories.

Fortunately members of the Foote family were meticulous writers and archivists of their own family papers. Caleb Foote the Patriot was a wonderful letter writer and journal keeper, both on land and on sea. So we know his Revolutionary story well, and his grandson amplified it by compiling and publishing his records in the Historical Collections of the Essex Institute in 1889. Several of the original texts are preserved among the papers of Divinity Professor Henry Wilder Foote (grandson of Caleb Foote III) at Harvard. According to a letter to his wife Mary, Foote was with General Washington at Cambridge in the fall of 1775, but returned home to Salem after the new year. He then took to the sea as yet another of Salem’s many daring privateers: his vessel, the Massachusetts brigantine Gates, was captured by the British off Canada in July of 1778, after which he was taken to England and imprisoned in Forton Prison near Portsmouth for the next two years. In Spring of 1779, he wrote to Mary back in Salem: I am sorry to inform you that you need not look for me till December or March next altho it may be my good fortune to be at home sooner. Please to remember me to all friends….Capt. Smith, Mr. Hines, Mr. Campton, Mr. Foster, Jacob Tucker, John Shaw, and Jonathan Tarent are in the prison with myself (as Salem served as a major privateer port, so many of its sailors ended up in Forton or Mill Prisons as prisoners of war). Foote grew increasingly exasperated with his imprisonment over his next letters, and with Mary as well, who did not seem to be writing him return letters (oddly he refers to her as “most affectionate friend” in his early letters and “dear beloved wife” in the later ones!) In the summer of 1780 he sounds bereft: my welfare…is very poor at present for here we lie in prison, in a languishing condition and upon very short allowance, surrounded by tyrants, and with no expectation of being redeemed at present, for we seem to be cast out, and forsaken by our country, and no one to grant us any relief in our distress; and many of our noble countrymen are sick and languishing for the want of things to support nature in this low estate of health; and many of they have gave to the shades of darkness. Some others have entered on board His Majesty’s ships to get clothes to cover their nakedness, which is to the shame of America.” This was the low point, after which Foote and several of his fellow prisoners managed to escape and find their way to Amsterdam, where they signed on as crew of the recently-commissioned Privateer South Carolina, which eventually brought them home. Foote kept the log along the way, and was discharged from service in January of 1782, near the end of the Revolution. Five years later he was dead at the age of 37, having never really recovered from his long and difficult service, and leaving Mary and their children in rather desperate straits according to the successive applications for aid sent to various Federal offices on her behalf by august Salem dignitories like Timothy Pickering and Nathaniel Silsbee.

Mary Foote survived her husband by nearly 40 years, during which time she saw her eldest son, namesake Caleb, die at sea, several years after his wife, leaving their sole child, five-year-old Caleb III, an orphan in 1810. His mother belonged to the large West family in Salem, and he was raised by them, chiefly his grandmother, who was the widow of Samuel West, bother of the Benjamin West who was killed at Bunker Hill. The Wests must have discouraged a seaman’s career for young Caleb, because he began an apprenticeship at the Salem Gazette and essentially never left: rising to editor, co-owner, and publisher. He was also a civil servant and the model of nineteenth-century civic engagement, serving as postmaster, school committee member, state representative, and Whig party chairman, as well as on every single infrastructure committee I could find and on the boards of nearly every Salem insitution. He was a temperate Mason. Caleb Foote spoke about his grandfather and namesake at public events regularly, but it wasn’t until towards the end of his life that he began taking up the cause of his great uncle Benjamin, who was for some reason left off the list of names on the Bunker Hill Memorial. Joseph Felt asserted that Benjamin West died “in the trenches” in his 1827 Annals of Salem, but he was unheralded in Boston until the venerable Foote took up his cause in the 1880s, perhaps inspired by his compilation work on his grandfather’s papers. And so we have some charming remembrances, first from Foote himself, who testified that this great-uncle of mine had some taste and talent for portrait painting, and a life-sized bust portrait of him in his lieutenant’s uniform, painted by himself hung in the house [of his grandmother West] , and its history was often mentioned to visitors. A copy of it is now in the possession of the Essex Institute, in Salem, and another in the family…..Another reminiscence was entered into the record that is even more poignant: a column from the late Henry Derby of Salem, whose grandmother was nine years old in 1775 and a neighbor of the Wests. She told her grandson that she remembered that morning of June 17 very clearly, when the young lieutenant came through her mother’s door exhibiting his insignia of office (a feather in his hat) to bid her goodbye. To the question, “Are you going, Benjamin?” “Yes—right away,” was his quick reply and off he went, never to return. Mrs. Derby remembered his artistic skills too. He had a shop downtown with a beautiful and much-admired sign of himself in the process of painting a carriage: a perfect advertisement for his sign-painting business. After his death and the disposal of his effects, this very sign became the lining of an outside cellar door of his family house, his last earthly residence, and there gratified the eyes of children and passers-by whenever these doors were thrown open, till time and exposure erased the picture of this young patriot and martyr to liberty.”

Salem Printer Ezekiel Russell’s Elegiac Poem on the Bloody Battle at Bunker-Hill, Massachusetts Historical Society; West Reminiscences in William Whitmore Story’s A memorial of the American patriots who fell at the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775 : with an account of the dedication of memorial tablets on Winthrop Square, Charlestown, June 17, 1889, and an appendix containing illustrative papers (Boston, 1889); Caleb Foote’s 1894 New York Times, obituary, also dated June 17!

A few notes on images: after I read about the self-portrait trade sign on the cellar door above, I spent hours trying to find some semblance. No luck: honestly, the close I could come is Norman Rockwell’s Colonial Sign Painter from 1936! As charming as Norman Rockwell can be, this is not what I was looking for. Much more interesting is the story of the West self-portrait at the Essex Institute, which turns out not to have been a self-portrait, but rather a portrait by his cousin Benjamin Blyth. All this is explained in an article on Benjamin Blyth by Professor Henry Wilder Foote, grandson of Caleb Foote III: what a coincidence! I couldn’t find an image anywhere, which is often the case with portraits which are referenced as deposited with the Essex Institute in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century catalogs and periodicals: I presume it’s up at the Peabody Essex Museum’s storage facility in Rowley. In any case, I love the inscription on the back as noted by Foote: The Gentleman The Patriot The Soldier The Hero.

Norman Rockwell, The New Tavern Sign (Colonial Sign Painter), 1936, Norman Rockwell Museum.

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November 1, 2022

The Skeletons of Lagrange Street

By daseger

Salem is a place where everybody always says that the “past is present” or something to that effect; one discerns the ongoing presence of the past in the old structures and streets and cemeteries. That used to ring true for me, but not so much anymore. I still have a sense of Salem as a palimpest city, though: with layers and layers of history beneath my feet, reinforced when I walk by one of the seldom-ceasing infrastructure projects downtown and see all the cobblestones that lie beneath. I often think of Salem in the nineteenth century, when there was so much new but also so much more old all around, as a time when people must really have been aware of the past in a material way because of the contrast: the factories were so big and noisy and the surviving relics of the “olden time” so decayed, rather than perfectly preserved (if they survive) today. And it seems as if every time one of those relics was demolished for new construction, more relics were found underground, sometimes human remains. Nathaniel Hawthorne has a story in one of his notebooks of a skeleton that was found, in parts, underneath High Streeet, identified by one of the older residents of the neighborhood as a Frenchmen who came to town. It was a notable, but not a shocking, discovery: I perused nineteenth-century Salem and Boston newspapers and regular reports of skeletons uncovered in Essex Country appeared fairly regularly, generally presumed to be Native Americans. Even early in the century, Salem’s great diarist, the Reverend William Bentley, ran over as soon as remains and “curiosities” emerged from the soil: to Winter Island, to Northfields, and to Southfields. Over time, the majority of the reported skeletons of Salem seem to have surfaced in a pretty specific area: in South Salem, along Palmer’s Cove, on a street that was called Lagrange in the 19th century and is now Leavitt. Here is the unfolding tale of their uncovering:

So, some awareness that there might have been an Indian Burial Ground in what was then Southfields as early as the 1850s, and a succession of extractions from 1809 on with no apparent effort to protect the site. Of course not, this follows in the tradition of founding father Thomas Jefferson, who conducted an archaelogical dig adjacent to Monticello even as he noted local Native Americans making “sorrowful” visitations, and Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes, who directed U.S. Army medical officers to collect the skulls of Native Americans in 1868, so that the craniological collection of the Army Medical Museum could facilitate “the progress of anthropological science by obtaining measurements of a large number of skulls of the aboriginal races of North America.” Later in the nineteenth century, the pseudo “race sciences” of phrenology and eugenics continued to justify this competitive collecting. The reference above to the Essex Insitute’s possession of an infant skeleton is not surprising, given that one of its founding institutions was the Essex County Natural History Society. It’s my only clue as to where any of these skeletons might have wound up (so far), but it is leading me nowhere: the Peabody Essex Museum’s 2018 completed inventory of human remains and associated funerary objects (in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or NAGPRA of 1990) does not reference remains from the Lagrange area specifically. The inventory includes “the physical remains of 45 individuals of Native American ancestry” taken from sites in Salisbury, Newbury, Ipswich, Gloucester, Marblehead, Revere and Salem. The Salem remains were taken from an “old cistern in Front Cellar in 1993” (????) and south Salem, so this could be Lagrange Street: the cranial fragments unearthed from this site apparently belonged to a teenager. It looks like one skeleton (in the 1892 clip) simply dissolved in the open air, but I am curious about how the rest of the remains were treated, and what became of them. My only remaining thread is intrepid medical examiner Frank S. Atwood, who seems to be taking the remains into professional custody, at the very least. Called to the scene of yet another discovery at the corner of English and Essex Streets in 1909, it is reported that he ordered their burial elsewhere. In just the past year or so, several unmarked graves of African-Americans have been identified and restored, and I’m wondering if that is within the realm of partial possibility for these earlier, displaced, settlers of Salem.

Lagrange Street on the 1911 Salem Atlas: in three years all this would be swept away by the great Salem Fire, and then rebuilding, again.

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October 23, 2022

A Salem Ghost Story

By daseger

Even though I recognize no connection between Halloween in general and the Salem Witch Trials (because #theywerenotwitches) and for that reason don’t particularly care for Salem Halloweens, I do like the holiday itself, especially its All Hallows Eve foundations. I like ghosts too, and ghost stories, especially if they are crafted elegantly and not just made up by Salem tour guides. For these reasons, I am always looking for a good Salem ghost story and last week I found one! It’s a humorous ghost story rather than a scary tale, written by Brander Matthews (1859-1929), the very prolific and pioneering professor of dramatic literature at Columbia University. “The Rival Ghosts” was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1884 and then in Matthews’ Tales of Fantasy and Fact in 1896. Its plot features a Salem house haunted by two ghosts who duke it out before they enter into a spectral marriage, bringing peace to both the house and its owner, a Mr. Eliphalet Duncan, on the eve of his own marriage. Eliphalet Duncan is a young New York lawyer, of Scotch and Yankee stock, as his father had come over from Scotland and married a girl from an old Salem family, dating back to the days of the Witch Trials of course. Both his parents died when Eliphalet was quite young, leaving him two legacies: a haunted Salem house and (eventually) a Scottish title. The Salem house is described as “little” and dates back to the seventeenth century, so I’m picturing it as either the Narbonne House or the John Ward House, both of which I gothicized a bit. The Crowninshield-Bentley House might be a bit late but I’ll throw it in there too: “The Rival Ghosts” is not illustrated in either of its editions, but it seems to be calling out for some imagery!

The Narbonne House of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site; John Ward and Crowninshield-Bently Houses, Peabody Essex Museum.

The Salem ghost never appears to the master of the house, but visitors would see and hear its presence on the second day of their stay, when it became determined to drive them away. So Eliphalet was a bit isolated in his little old Salem house, which became even more unwelcoming after he received word that his Scottish cousin had died, leaving him with the family title. Apparently the title came with a ghost, who was to attend his lord at all times and places, and so the Scottish Ghost was suddenly in Salem. Neither ghost was threatening to the new Lord Duncan, but they clearly hated each other, and caused quite a ruckus in his little house: wailing, rapping, throwing things, and playing a variety of musical instruments. He was determined to find out more about them in order to get rid of them, so that he might have peace and visitors in Salem. Towards that aim he invited an old friend to the house, a very brave friend with whom he had fought in the Civil War: his comrade left on day three of what was supposed to be a week’s stay, driven away by the the cacaphony of the rival ghosts. A very frustrated Eliphalet fled as well, to the White Mountains, accompanied by the personal Scottish Ghost and leaving the House Ghost in Salem: “spooks can’t quarrel when they are a hundred miles apart any more than men can,” our narrator observes.

Window of Quaker Meeting House, Salem, Peabody Essex Museum.

On the top of Mount Washington (I guess the cog railway had been built), Eliphalet met the love of his life, the sister of a former classmate who was he immediately determined to marry: Miss Kitty Sutton. A long courtship and engagement ensued, during which he told her about the ghosts. She expressed great interest in his family house, but wanted it cleared of spectres, so Eliphalet returned to Salem on a mission. He pleaded with the ghosts to vacate and managed to enter into a dialogue with them, during which it was revealed that the House Ghost was a woman! She had been murdered by her husband back in seventeenth-century Salem and had lingered ever since. Eliphalet suggested a spectral marriage to give them all some domestic peace, but the ghosts protested that there was too much of an age difference (the House Ghost was about 200 years old, while the Scottish Ghost claimed to be 450 years old) before finally consenting. There followed a double wedding, of ghosts and humans, and off the former went, leaving the little old Salem house to the new Mr. and Mrs. (Lord and Lady) Duncan. While it’s not entirely clear how their marriage led the ghosts to vacate, it’s a nice ending to a charming tale, full of spirited negotiations! Another discovery this past week: the old house interiors paintings of the Russian-American artist Morris Kantor (1896-1974), painted in 1930-31 after a summer tour of visiting historic houses. Maybe it was just the timing of these twin discoveries, but they seem like perfect atmostpheric illustrations for “The Rival Ghosts,” particularly this first one: The Haunted House. 

Morris Kantor, The Haunted House (1930), Art Institute of Chicago; Still Life (1931), Artemis Gallery; Interior (1931), Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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October 18, 2022

Revenues and Reparations in the Witch City

By daseger

I often find that my profession and my residence are in conflict: it’s challenging to be an historian in Salem, especially at this time of year. More than one person has suggested that I move, and I think every one of my colleagues has done so when I come in all hot and bothered about one thing or another. But even though Salem is often frustrating, it is always engaging and has offered me many “teachable moments” throughout my career. The past few days, beautiful autumn days, have been a case in point. On Friday, we were considering the immediate and slightly longer-term aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials in my two freshmen seminars. I am not an American historian or an expert in the Trials, but the historian who is both of those things in my department, my colleague Emerson “Tad” Baker, has been working in the administration for the past few years so I have been pinch-hitting. Students come to Salem State with a certain degree of awareness and/or interest in the Trials and so we thought we should offer a freshman seminar focused on 1692 to introduce students to both college work and Salem. I put a lot of work into last year’s seminars so I thought I should repeat them this year, but never again: Tad is back and that is that! Anyway, on Friday we were reading about apologies, reversals, and restitution: several participants in the trials (Judge Samuel Sewall, the jurors, accuser Ann Putnam) issued apolgies after their conclusion, the General Court of Massachusetts reversed the attainders of witchcraft conviction for some (but not all) of the accused “witches” and also compensated their families for some (obviously not ALL) of their damages upon petition. Both my students and myself were very touched by the petition of Isaac Esty, Sr. for restitution following the execution of his wife Mary, one of the three former Towne sisters accused of witchcraft in 1692. Mary and her sister Rebecca Nurse were executed while their sister Sarah Cloyce escaped to Framingham. Here is Mr. Esty’s petition of September 8, 1710 and a transcription, from the University of Virginia’s Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project:

Isaac Esty Sen of Topsfield in the county of Essex in N. E. having been sorely exercis’d through the holy & awful providence of God depriving him of his beloved wife Mary Esty who suffered death in the year 1692 & under the fearfull odium of one of the worst of crimes that can be laid to the charge of mankind, as if she had been guilty of witchcraft a piece of wickedness which I beleeve she did hate with perfect hatred & by all that ever I could see by her never could see any thing by her that should give me any reason in the lest to think her guilty of any thing of that nature but am firmly persuaded that she was as innocent of it as any to such a shameful death — Upon consideration of a notification from the Honored Generall Court desiring my self & others under like circumstances to give some account of what my Estate was damnify’d by reason of such a hellish molestation do hereby declare which may also be seen by comparing papers & records that my wife was near upon 5 months imprisoned all which time I provided maintenance for her at my own cost & charge, went constantly twice aweek to provide for her what she needed 3 weeks of this 5 months she was in prison at Boston & I was constrained to be at the charge of transporting her to & fro. So that I can not but think my charge in time and mony might amount to 20 pounds besides my trouble & sorrow of heart in being deprived of her after such a manner which this world can never make me any compensation for. Isak Esty sen’r.

He had lost his wife 18 years previously, but it sounds like it was yesterday. She hated witchcraft: her death and execution was a “hellish molestation” for which “this world can never make me any compensation for.” She was imprisoned for 5 months, including three weeks in Boston, and he was compelled to pay for all of the associated expenses, which might amount to £20, “besides my trouble & sorrow of heart.” I found the combination of profound emotional distress and relatively inconsequential damages moving; my students did too. So there we were, discussing this horrible event and a community’s attempts at reconciliation. Class dismissed, and I’m walking home through the streets of Salem, and when I get to downtown there are laughing witches, young witches, older witches, half-dressed witches, all sorts of witches—all so celebratory, and happy to be in Salem, the Witch City, where Mary Esty and her sister died with others, proclaiming fervently that they were not witches. Later vindicated, but forevermore witches, because Salem needs to be Halloweentown, and what would Halloweentown be without witches? Our present Mayor, and soon-to-be Lieutenant Governor, expressed the connection succinctly:

And she is expressing a majority opinion. Halloween is very popular in Salem: the crowds get bigger and bigger with each passing year, and apparently so do the revenues, for both private businesses and the City. According to several sources, Salem tourists spent 140 million in the Witch City in 2020, 35% of which was spent during October: and that was a Covid year. I’m sure revenues will be off the charts this year, as crowds certainly are. I had numbers on my brain as I walked home on Friday night and woke up the next morning with them still in my head. We had discovered that the Massachusetts General Court alloted £578 to the Salem victims’ families in 1710-1711: how much would that be now my students asked? We went over to my favorite past-to-present currency calculator at the UK National Archives and came up with around £60,648, which is about $79,000 in US dollars. $79,000, 19 executions, one crushing, five deaths in jail, a succession of reversals of attainder and apologies: this all adds up to the “legendary witch history” referenced by Mayor Driscoll above, the basis of Salem’s spectacularly successful witchcraft tourism. 140 million in a pandemic year, with 49 million generated just in October, compared to a mere $79,000! I wonder if a reconsideration of compensation is in order? That would be one way to justify the exploitative nature of Salem’s witchcraft tourism: acknowledge it for what it is, just business. Thanks to all of the genealogical research on those accused of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Salem we probably know who and where all of their descendants are: why shouldn’t they get a cut? I just kept thinking about these numbers when I was walking around Salem this past weekend, amongst HUGE crowds: people = profits.

Scenes from a Salem weekend, October 2022: light and dark and a very well-dressed witch; there’s a tour guide in there somewhere (no one could hear him, so no one was listening); the line for PEM’s Ropes Mansion which seems to be identified primarily as “Allison’s House” from Hocus Pocus by Salem tourists; Chestnut Street from my bedroom window (that line of cars went on all day long on Saturday)’ the Salem Witch Museum is very proud that this is the 50th anniversary of Haunted Happenings.

Am I really recommending reparations? Sadly, no. I just want to point out the inequities between past and present, and the exploitation of the former by the latter. It’s nothing new, but I don’t think you can call it out enough. While reparations are most commonly referenced in the disastrous imposition on Germany following World War I and the ongoing issue of compensation for enslavement here in the US, there have been more successful experiments, most notably the restitution initiatives extended to the families of Japanese-Americans interned during World War II. But a Salem reparations program would be impossible: so much time as passed, there would be so many claimants, and so much money involved!  Reparations would also run counter to Massachusetts state law, as politicians past protected witchcraft profiteering proactively. The legal exoneration of the persons convicted of witchcraft in Salem in 1692 came in three phases. In 1711 Chapter 80 of the Resolves reversed the attainder for the majority of victims, but excluded six women:  Ann Pudeator, Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott and Wilmot Redd. Following World War II, relatives of Ann Pudeator started lobbying for her exoneration, which was finally achieved with Chapter 145 of the Resolves of 1957 . Finally, following the appeal of Salem State University graduate student Paula Keen and the concerned families, Chapter 122 of the Acts of 2001 included Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott and Wilmot Redd in the 1957 law, in which they were simple referred to as “others.” The 1957 Pudeator bill was debated for quite some time, particularly in the period 1954-1957, as legislators openly questioned the impact of the exoneration on tourism and the possibility that it might expose the Commonwealth to legal action. Consequently the language of the bill’s final passage specifically provides that descendants of the victims of 1692 may not sue for damages! No worries for Salem.

United Press National Headlines 1954 & 1957: not sure why Senator Evans of WAKEFIELD was so concerned but he gets the most quotes for sure!

The word “reparations” usually means money, but it also refers to repairing one’s reputation, image, or perception (and not simply replacing it with something new and shiny, as in Salem). I’ve been thinking about that process too, because of another witchcraft course I’m teaching this semester, Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (yes, it’s a pretty intense semester). Unlike the situation in Massachusetts, there were no immediate attempts to rehabilitate the many victims of the succession of witch trials which occurred in much of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; indeed, that process is happening now. This very year the provincial governments of Scotland, where witch-hunting was particularly intense, and Catalonia, where witch trials began relatively early, have apologized formally for their witch hunts. Both exoneration movements were clearly feminist in inspiration, highlighting the fact that the majority of the victims in both regions were women, but both also focused on the necessity of repairing the historical memory of the accused. I’ve been so struck by the Catalan discourse, triggered by the slogan/hashtag No Eren Bruixes/ They were not witches. I hope that that the apologies to those who were not witches paves the way for true historical understanding through reparation in both Catalonia and Scotland, rather than expedient exploitation once the slate has been wiped clean.

“They were not Witches,” (they were Women): a call to action in Catalonia. 

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October 11, 2022

Flight to Newbury

By daseger

While I usually make plans to be as far away from Salem as possible on Columbus/Indigenous Day weekend to avoid the crowds and traffic, we had obligations this year so I was stuck in town. I can hide in my house or run over to the Salem Woods to escape the tourists, but not my feelings of anxiety at this time of year. It’s really hard for me to embrace the party as I can’t forget it is based on collective and individual tragedy so I’m just kind of seething in Salem. I wish I could lighten up, but I can’t so the best thing to do is get out of town: if not for a weekend at least for a day, or even a few hours. So as soon as I heard the laughter outside of my house I ran outside, jumped in the car, and drove north. The Newburys (Newbury, Newburyport, West Newbury) always calm me down with their seemingly endless inventory of perfectly restored old houses and litterless streets. Plus, this weekend the “Battle for Newbury” was on at Historic New England’s Spencer-Peirce-Little House: certainly a Revolutionary-war reenactment would distract me. And it did.

Two preserved early Colonial houses in very different places: Salem’s Witch or Corwin House and Historic New England’s Dole-Little House in Newbury. Heading north on Route 1A you come to another HNE property, the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, scene of the annual “Battle for Newbury.” Abbreviated tours of the house, which is dated 1690 with many later additions, were offered so I popped in with a bunch of soldiers (dining-room mantle, Federal parlor and back staircase above) but it was such a beautiful day to be outside!

So of course the real battles for Newbury occcurred across the pond during the English Civil Wars but it’s always fun to be with people who crave history, even in an idealized sense. That is certainly not the environment in Salem. And it was peaceful in Newbury, even with the mid-afternoon skirmish: clearly the reenactors, both soldiers and civilians, like to spend time together indulging in camp life. There were colonials from Rhode Island and Acton and Marblehead, Massachusetts, and the redcoats in His Majesty’s 10th Regiment of Foot are from Wrentham, I think (though they drill in Lexington). After a few hours at the Farm, I made a little tour of other seventeenth-century structures in Newbury and Newburyport and ended up at another Historic New England house, the Coffin House (1678), home to generations of the prolific Coffin family. I had a great tour and learned all about the evolution of the house, from its later seventeenth-century origins (oriented south), to its 1712 addition (what you see in “front” from Route 1A), and its 19th century division (so many interior windows!) and acquisition by Historic New England (then the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities) in that fateful year of 1929. So much history, so much texture! So calm.

The Coffin House in Newbury: exterior and original (back) house and newer (1712) addition in front: main room, bedroom, buttery, Georgian kitchen and parlors.

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October 3, 2022

The Most Magical Plants

By daseger

Well, October is upon us here in Salem, so that means I’m going to spend all my time inside or on the road. I’m just not a fan of Haunted Happenings, the City’s Halloween festival that starts earlier with each passing year: crowds are converging from at least mid-September now. On September 22, when eight convicted “witches” were hung at Proctor’s Ledge in 1692, you can see people dancing in the streets in Salem. Haunted Happenings is now in its 50th year and this is an anniversary worth celebrating for many, but for me, it’s just fifty years of turning tragedy into treasure. While I do not see or celebrate the connection between the tragedy of the Salem Witch Trials and Halloween, I still find the customs and traditions associated with the latter holiday very interesting, and as I’m teaching my “Magic and Witchcraft in early Modern Europe” course this semester, I find myself subsumed in the source and secondary literature of these complex topics. I haven’t taught this course in 5 years so it definitely needs a refresh! I have learned so much teaching this course over my career at Salem State: at the beginning I offered it simply as a corrective to what I saw (and still see) as a simplistic understanding of witch trials here in Salem, but every time I taught it I learned more about Christian theology and European folklore: after about a decade of teaching it I felt that I needed to undertake more serious study of the former and and contemplated going to Divinity School and now I feel like I need an advanced degree in folklore! It’s all so interwoven, and the focus on both magic and witchcraft over the medieval and early modern eras enables one to see how and why pre-Christian beliefs were assimilated into Christianity—and/or demonized. This coming week we are going to look at some important high and later-medieval herbals and the “magic” that was contained therein, so I decided to make a list of the top ten magical plants. This was a more difficult task than I though it would be as so many plants have protective/proactive virtues associated with them, but this is my list. I’m leaving out Mandrake because we all know that’s the most magical plant of them all, and as many plants were seen to be powerful in both facilitating and dispelling magic I’m going with the most efficacious, by reputation.

Vervain: actually might be more powerful than mandrake. It was known as both an “enchanter’s plant” and an antidote against witchcraft. Gathering vervain seems to have been somewhat of a sacred ritual and there doesn’t seem to be anything that this plant could not do: protect, predict, heal, preserve chasteness and procure love. Snakes are often included in illustrations of vervain: both slithering varieties in the marginalia and more threatening serpents at center stage. Clearly it was percieved as an effective weapon against both.

British Library MSS Sloane 1975 and Egerton 747.

St. John’s Wort: a powerful demon-repellent as you can see by this retreating demon in the fifteenth-century Italian Tractatus de Herbis (British Library Codex Sloane 4016). Referred to as a “devil-chaser” on the Continent, St. John’s Wort was also worn as a protective amulet and used as decoration for doorways and windows on St. John’s Eve at midsummer, when its yellow flowers bloom. Its association with St. John the Baptist also bequeathed it medical virtues, and it was used to staunch bleeding, especially from the thrusts of poisoned weapons, and treat wounds.

British Library Codex Sloane 4016 and MS Egerton 747.

Rue: one of my very favorite herbs, and the sole survivor of my garden of plague cures from twenty years ago! The “herb of grace” was prized for its potency against the plague, infections, and also poison, signalled by its bitterness. It was also believed to be a preserver of eyesight, but it’s best to focus on the general rather than the particulars with this very efficacious herb, which could ward off witchcraft and was used in masses and exorcisms as well as an abortifacient. I just think its gray-green leaves are beautiful, and it adds structure to the garden all season long.

Plantae Utiliores; or Illustrations of useful plants, employed in the Arts and Medicine, M.A.Burnett,1842. 

Scabiosa: was far more interesting in the medieval period than its profile as a perfect cottage garden plant now. It was known as “Devil’s Bit” because of the appearance of its root, which looks like someone took a bite out of it. According to John Gerard, who was known to “borrow” information rather indiscriminately, “the great part of the root seems to be bitten away; old fantastic charmers do report that the Devil did bite it for envy, because it is an herb that has so many good virtues, and is so beneficial to mankind.” It was perceived as particularly beneficial to the skin, hence its name, a far cry from “pincushion flower.”

British Library MS Egerton 747; William Catto, 1915, Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums.

Garlic: also has a devilish nickname, the “Devil’s Posy,” and cure-all connotations, so that it was also known as the “Poor Man’s Treacle.” (Treacle is an English sweet now, but in the late medieval and early modern eras it was an anglicization for “theriac,” the universal panacea.) There’s an interesting old tale that when Satan stepped out of the Garden of Eden after his great triumph, garlic sprang from the spot where his left foot lay, and onions from where he had placed his right foot. Like so much folklore, I’m not entirely sure what to do with this information. The key attribute of garlic was its pungent odor: like the bitter taste of rue, this signalled strength: enough to ward off witches, plague, and I guess vampires (though medieval people do not mention the latter).

Garlic (right) and a coiled snake, British Library MS Egerton 747.

Foxglove: a plant with more folkloric pseudonyms than any other! Foxglove: gloves for foxes or fairies or witches? Fairy fingers, ladies’ thimbles, rabbit flowers, throatwort, flapdock, cow-flop, lusmore, lionsmouth, Scotch mercury, dead man’s bells, witches’ gloves, witches’ bells: these are just some of its variant nicknames. Dead man’s bells indicates some knowledge of its potentially poisonous effects, but its cardiac attributes were not known until the eighteenth century. What a tangle with all these names! It’s so interesting to me that a plant can be associated with both witches and the Virgin Mary, as digitalis apparently was. Some of its names also testify to belief in the “doctrine of signatures” by which the appearance of herbs signals their use: foxglove flowers were said to look like an open mouth, and their freckles symbolic of inflamation of the throat: hence, throatwort.

Woodblock trial proof for textiles, 1790-1810, Cooper Hewitt Museum.

Holly: was perceived as very holy, of course. Very little nuance or contradiction with this plant, which Pliny, who seems very accepted by the medievals even though he was a Pagan, credited with the powers to protect and defend against withcraft, lightening, and poison. Its red berries became associated with the blood of Christ over the medieval era, along with its thorny leaves, which made it even more potent. Plant it close to the house, all the traditional authorities say (I feel fortunate that someone did that for my house long ago).

Elizabeth Blackwell’s Curious Herbal, 1737-39.

Moonwort: a little lesser known, but worthy of inclusion if only because it supposedly possesses the ability to open locks and guard silver, as well as unshoe any horses that happen to tread upon it or even near. Ben Jonson referred to it as one of the ingredients of “witches’ broth,” but by his time I think they were throwing everything into that brew. It’s a tiny, tight-fisted, flowering fern (Botrychium lunaria) that just looks like it must have magical qualities, but was also used to heal wounds.

George William Johnson, The British ferns popularly described, and illus. by engravings of every species (1857).

Henbane: is perhaps the most powerful of the bane plants, indicating death by poison, and another plant with both harming and healing virtues, demanding skillful use. It is always mentioned in reference to witchcraft in the late medieval and early modern eras, specifically as an ingredient in ointments (and salves which enabled witches to stick to their brooms!) This might be why it was referred to as the “Devil’s eye” in some regions. But it was also a powerful sedative, known to take away pain, and a hallucinogenic which could take away sense.

Henbane (on the right) in BL MS Egerton 747; Patrick Symons, Still Life with Henbane, 1960, Royal Academy.

Deadly Nightshade: related to henbane, but even more potent. Every bit of this plant was known to be poisonous, and early modern botanical authors urged their readers to banish it from their gardens. With knowledge and caution, henbane was a plant one could work with, but hands off deadly nightshade! Only the Devil tended it; in fact it was difficult to lure him away from this menacing crop of  “devil’s berries” and of course it was yet another ingredient in the strange brews of witches. Its botanical name, Atropa belladonna, indicates its use:  The eldest of the Three Fates of classical Greek mythology, the “inflexible” Atropos cut off the thread of life, and the “beautiful ladies” of Renaissance Venice used it in tincture form for wide-open, sparkling eyes. The English adopted the term belladonna in the later sixteenth century, but they also referred to deadly nightshade simply as “dwale,” a stupefying or soporific drink.

William Catto, Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museum.

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