SALEM WITCH TRIALS

After reading chapter 3  in American History Give Me Liberty, I became interested in learning more about the Salem Witch Trials and decided to visit the Salem Witch Mesuem and Witch House.

SALEM WITCH HOUSE  

   

The Jonathan Corwin House in Salem, Massachusetts, USA, known as The Witch House, was the home of Judge Jonathan Corwin (1640–1718) and is the only structure still standing in Salem with direct ties to the Salem witch trials of 1692, thought to be built between 1620 and 1642. It was bought by Judge Corwin in 1675, when he was 35 years old, and he lived there for more than forty years. Corwin was  buried in the nearby Broad Street Cemetery. The house remained in the Corwin family until the mid-19th century.

  

The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June. Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem’s Gallows Hill, while some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months. By September 1692, the hysteria had begun to abate and public opinion turned against the trials. Though the Massachusetts General Court later annulled guilty verdicts against accused witches and granted indemnities to their families, bitterness lingered in the community, and the painful legacy of the Salem witch trials would endure for centuries. www.history.com/topics/salem-witch-trials

On September 18th , I went to the Trails and Sails event at Pine Grove Cemetery in Lynn, Massachusetts. 

One of the places I focused on was The Civil War G.A.R Lot. There are 573 veterans buried in the lot.

Civil War G.A.R Lot

In this lot is buried John B. Stackhouse who was born a slave in Nashville, Tennessee.  

John B. Stackhouse's gravestone.

The map and guide of the tour states “He enlisted on December 23, 1863(about 11 months after The Emancipation Proclamation) and mustered out on August 20, 1865. Stackhouse participated in the 54^th campaign in South Carolina, Florida and Georgia. Originally part of the Lincoln Post 7 in Maryland, he then joined the G.A.R post 5 on January 30th, 1896. He died on April, 1899 in the Soldiers Home in Chelsea Massachusetts.”

The EmancipationProclamation. On Jan. 1st, 1863, The U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared free all slaves residing in territory in rebellion against the federal government. This Emancipation Proclamation actually freed few people.

John Stackhouse was one of the few freed people. The soldiers home where he died is an important place in Chelsea, MA.  Given that many slaves had no rights for such a long time, it is good to know that regardless that once he was a slave he became free, served as a soldier, was recognized for his service and treated equally at the end of his life.

This is a tall water tank in Chelsea labeled "SOLDIERS HOME"

This is the main building at Soldiers Home.

Established in 1882, the Soldiers' Home in Chelsea is a multifaceted health care facility available to eligible veterans of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The mission of the Soldiers' Home in Chelsea is to provide, with honor and dignity, the highest quality personal health care services to Massachusetts Veterans.

Sincerely, I hope that treatment and conditions of the Soldiers Home towards veterans was great when the home was stablished. However, as the time passed by, the conditions and treatment towards veterans changed; I hope the conditions for veterans are much better nowadays.

https://www.facebook.com/ChelseaSoldiersHome/?fref=ts

Paul Revere and a slave named Mark haunt the Holiday Inn in Somerville

Monday and Tuesday of this week I attended a conference that took place at the Holiday Inn in Somerville.  I knew I had to come up with a blog post for this week's class, but still didn't have an idea of what it would be.  As I was walking out to my car after the first day of the conference I saw what looked like a grave stone.  It was a stone commemorating an event that took place during Paul Revere's famous ride.  It is inscribed:
 "Paul Revere on his famous ride April 18, 1776 was intercepted near here by British Officers and escaped". 

I decided to snap a photo of it and then to see what I could find out about the event.

First I googled "Paul Revere and The Holiday Inn in Somerville".  I found lots of references, blogs and newspaper articles about the site.  The site was easy to locate because of a letter that Paul Revere wrote to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1798 describing the events of his ride.  This is what he wrote about this site:

"I set off upon a very good Horse; it was then about 11 o'Clock, & very pleasant. After I
had passed Charlestown Neck, & got nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains, I saw two men on Horse back, under a Tree. When I got near them, I discovered they were British officer. One tryed to git a head of Me, & the other to take me. I turned my Horse very quick, & Galloped towards Charlestown neck, and then pushed for the Medford Road. The one who chased me, endeavoring to Cut me off, got into a Clay pond, near where the new Tavern is now built. I got clear of him, and went thro Medford, over the Bridge, & up to Menotomy".  See the letter here.

It gets more interesting because he refers to the place as the place "where Mark was hung in chains".  What did that mean, I wondered.  I decided to search on "where Mark was hung in chains". There I discovered that Mark was a slave who, along with two other slaves, killed his master John Codman by poisoning him with arsenic. His punishment was to be hanged, then they tarred his body, which preserved it, and then gibbeted it near the spot by the Holiday Inn.  The body had been hanging there for over 20 years when Paul Revere encountered the two British Officers.  Why?  It was used as a warning to let other slaves know what could happen to them if they rebelled. Here are some links to blogs and websites that tell more about Mark and the other two slaves.  

 

//paulreveresriderevisited.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/the-gruesome-landmark/

http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/educational-resources/article-codman.shtml

https://archive.org/details/trialexecutionfo00good

It's important to note the punishment of Mark and the other two slaves took place in Boston, not Virginia or South Carolina.  Slavery was  a scourge no matter where it took place and this story really illustrates that.  The cruelty and macabre ways of punishment that were practiced during those times is hard for us to believe in this day and age.  It was not enough to hang Mark, they also "gibbeted" him. When they gibbeted people it meant that they would hang the body in a cage.  Sometimes they put people in the cage alive, and let them die slowly.  Here is a picture of what a gibbeted body/skeleton looked like:

I set out to learn the story of Paul Revere in Somerville on the night of April 18, 1776.  By delving into that story, I found a more interesting story about what happened to Mark the slave in 1755. If Paul Revere had not mentioned Mark in his letter, would the horrific execution of the three slaves of John Codman be lost in history?  Would I have still been haunted at the Holiday Inn if it was only Paul Revere that I found in the parking lot?  

Fort Barton - Tiverton, Rhode Island
In December of 1776, the British army seized control of Newport and eventually began to occupy all of Aquideck Island. To combat this, The legislature voted to raise three regiments in an effort to release themselves from the grasp of Great Britain. In march of 1778, Congress appointed Major General John Sullivan to manage the Continental Army's efforts. Sullivan then began to collect weapons and planned an attack on the British. In 1778 the 1st Rhode Island Regiment a specifically African-American troop was corralled in order to help the state meet its obligations for manning the Continental Army. In the end, the fighting cost Sullivan the lives of 30 soldiers and left 138 soldiers wounded.

A Portrait of Puritan Life in Boston

 Archaeological excavations on this site revealed a stirring portrait of Puritan Life in Boston in 1660.
Imagine resident Katherine Nanny Naylor dressed in fine silk with lace trim, playing a game of bowles (lawn bowling). Katherine Nanny Naylor was a wealthy widow who, in 1671 divorced her second husband after accusing him of abuse and adultery. This was her home site where she lived until 1700. In addition to a lawn bowle and silk lace fragments, archaeologists recovered ceramics from Spain, Portugal, Germany, and England; Venetian glass; olive pits; coriander seeds; coconut shells; and seashells from the world's oceans illustrating the particularly cosmopolitan and international character of Boston in the 17th century.

 Interestingly, this stone inscription found in the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway in Boston by the North End describes a woman, Katherine Naylor, who was an independent widow, able to divorce her husband on her own will, a striking story of women's rights during the 17th century at the very start of Boston. I gained a greater appreciation for the colonial Boston that was more cosmopolitan than I would have guessed before.

 I doubt many people have noticed this rather obscure inscription in the middle of a bordering stone placement on the Greenway. After some research I found that the articles of linen and other artifacts had been found in a privy, (the outside toilet) that was sealed with clay, preserving these remnants to have been discovered today. (http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/boston/)

Another interesting piece unrelated to the archaeological finding was this "Little Free Library" where people are able to take-out or add-in books.

When I was younger, I used to have snow ball fights in the back of Rev. John Hale's yard.  I had no idea about the history of Rev. John Hale and his involvement in the Salem Witch Trials. Rev. Hale witnessed, as a child, the very first victim of the trials, Margarete Jones.  With the craze of witch hunting being a social norm, he probably thought the woman deserved it.  He joined the militia in 1690 and when he returned he got himself involved in the Which Trials.  Supposedly many girls were being tormented by witches. Historyofmassachusetts.org says that, "Reverend Hale was among the foremost ministers intent upon seeking out and and eliminating the witches responsible." He like, many others, believed that the girls were being tormented  by witches. However as more and more people were being accused of being a witch, he became less involved.  When his wife Sarah was accused of being a witch, he stopped all involvement.  He also wrote the book, “A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft”. 

I was at first angry that he only stopped getting involved because someone personal to him got accused.  Its kinda a big, "I don't care about you", to everyone else accused. His back yard was fun to play in.

http://historyofmassachusetts.org/reverend-john-hale-of-beverly/

Lyannough Statue

This beautiful statue is located in Main street Hyannis, MA.  While walking on the town of Hyannis during my honeymoon, I founded this statue very eye catching, it is such a beautiful work of art! It has a very rich and dark brown color; the material is very soft to the touch.  However, this statue represents “Lyannough”, he was very famous for his kindness, hospitality, to the Pilgrims, and for having a tragic destiny.  “Lyannough” was the leader of the Native American Tribe called the (Mattakeese). He is related to the period we studied in chapter 2 of our book, “The Beginnings of English America”.  In this chapter we learned about the “Pilgrims” and how they landed on Cape Cod Instead of Virginia.

http://www.talesofcapecod.org/node/1062