Category: American Affairs

At first, I thought the ‘Mariner’ was a redundancy

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

 Capt. Mariner S. Crosby. Given his Christian name, it was inevitable that he would take to the sea. That’s what struck me the first time I wandered through Hillside Cemetery.

The second time I went to the graveyard, I was looking for that marker but couldn’t find it. Back home and at my computer, Find-a-Grave led me to the rest of the inscription, which is admittedly rather worn away, as well as some additional facts.

What I found was this:

“Lost at sea with his family and the Brig Sarah B. Crosby,” named for his wife. She and the four children, one of them an unnamed infant, are then listed on the white memorial – Jacob W., Mary B., and Lucy B.

The date of their demise is uncertain, “around Oct. 25, 1867” – in season for a hurricane or some other vicious storm, although a fire in a wooden ship can’t be ruled out.

I trotted back to the cemetery for a closer look. Here it is:

The broken column symbolizes the loss of an upstanding citizen in his prime.

The Chamber of Commerce website reveals more:

“Mariner Crosby was the master of the brig ‘Maria White’ in 1852 and the schooner ‘Mary Jane’ in 1855. From 1861-1863 Mariner was the master of the barque ‘Charles Heddle,’ also built by C.S. Huston,” in Eastport. Around the corner from me, actually. “Mariner’s last command was the brig ‘Sarah B. Crosby,’ named for his wife, which was built in Pembroke. He commanded this vessel from 1863 to 1867 when the vessel was reported overdue. Mariner, his wife Sarah and four children, as well as the crew and passengers, were lost at sea without a trace.”

The pillar is a broken mast, as the three rings of rope emphasize. And there’s a carving of a brig going down, all but one of its square sails blown away.

We’re not even told where the ship was bound, much less about its cargo, passengers, or crew. And a brig did require significant manpower to manage the massive square sails.

The two-masted 316-ton “Sarah B. Crosby” was built in Pembroke by George Russell in 1863 and then based out of Portland, bound for ports such as New York and St. John, New Brunswick.

I started to investigate and found a bit more.

She knew the travails of the sea, having wrecked at treacherous Sandy Hook, New Jersey, on March 1, 1865, with the passengers and crew safely removed. And then, after being abandoned, she was reclaimed and repaired, with shipments of coal from Halifax, Nova Scotia, later in the year.

On March 19, 1867, the New York Herald carried this notice: “Brig Sarah B Crosby (of Portland), Crosby, Measina, Jan 27, with fruit to Lawrence, Giles & Co, passed Gibraltar Feb 16; has had heavy westerly gales, with snow and hail, and split sails. Mar 13, latitude 41 30, longitude 65, spoke ship Michigan, from Liverpool for London.” (Measina, a mystery unto himself, was first mate. They would have been just off England at the time this information was relayed.)

I would like to know more in general about wives and children traveling with captains. It turns out to have been common, with a significant number of the children being born at sea or spending a large part of their childhood there. Wives were partners with shares in the business, whether they went abroad or stayed ashore. They even learned navigation, but did not interfere with the cook aboard ship. There were strict lines of authority. Beyond that, what were Sarah’s views and experiences? Was she even related to the 1841 Robert Bates house a few doors up the street from me? She was only 33 or so at the end; there’s no age for Jacob, though Mary would have been around 11 and Lucy, only seven.

While Mariner grew up in Eastport, the son of a Nova Scotia immigrant, Sarah was the daughter of a hotelier in Calais, Maine, best I can tell. Her father came from Massachusetts; her mother, New Hampshire. Mariner Crosby and Sarah E. Bates were married in Eastport February 12, 1855, by the Baptist minister Nathaniel Butler, of note himself. We have no idea how they met.

Mariner came to the sea naturally. At least two of his four brothers were also sea captains. Not just sailors or first masters but skippers.

Capt. Jerry died in Havana in 1879.

And Christopher Crosby led the racing yacht “Coronet” that defeated the “Dauntless” in a famed trans-Atlantic race in 1897. He went to sea at age 17 and was skipper by the time he turned 19. Yes, born to the sea.

And that’s as much of their story as I’m able to find, all prompted by one name in stone.

Witchcraft in New England before the Salem hysteria

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Something I pretty much skip over in my history of Dover is the Puritan authorities’ close examination of the bodies of the early Quaker women missionaries for any signs revealing them to be witches, from 1656 on.

That was down in Boston, for one thing, and I’ve seen no indication of similar actions along the Piscataqua watershed in New Hampshire and Maine, the center of my new book.

But it has come back to haunt me.

Much of my argument regarding the readiness for a significant portion of the Dover population’s joining Quakers has to do with the ways they differed culturally from the Puritan majority in the Massachusetts Bay colony and Connecticut. What David Hackett Fischer terms “folkways.”

For example, in all of their fearful piety, what made the Puritans so morbidly curious about the naked female flesh, anyway? And just what, exactly, were they looking for? This gets weird, doesn’t it? I’m not sure I want specifics, as in details, much less in those parading through Salem, Massachusetts, these days in preparation for Halloween. I’ll have to admit that part leaves me feeling queasy.

Puritan Costumes. Illustration from The Comprehensive History of England (Gresham Publishing, 1902).

Just consider the stereotypical presentation of witches in pointed hats and black capes and then recognize how much that resembles the dress of Puritan women in New England at the time. As for flying on brooms? How strange! Just how did that conflation happen, anyway? Put another way, witches didn’t dress differently than anyone else. As for the brooms? Every housewife had one.

Well, maybe that points to the male authority role in all of this, something I’m perceiving as a gender power play.

Back to the Quakers. As historian Arthur J. Worrall explains, “Two groups of Quakers arrived in 1656. The first, led by Anne Austin and Mary Fisher, came to Boston in July. The Massachusetts government promptly imprisoned them for five weeks; after checking them for signs of witchcraft, they expelled them in August. A second group of eight Quaker missionaries came to Boston two days after their expulsion,” aboard the Speedwell.

“Massachusetts imprisoned this group for eleven weeks and expelled them also, after the clergy had examined and debated with them.”

For perspective, Fischer notes that from 1647 to 1692, the Puritan colonies accounted for ninety percent of the accusations and eighty-five percent of the executions for witchcraft in English-speaking America. That is, almost ALL of them.

Moreover, “In England, every quantitative study has found that the recorded cases of witchcraft were most frequent in the eastern counties from which New England was settled.” Specifically, the Puritan heartland, in the motherland and then in the New World.

“Even white magic was regarded as a form of blasphemy. In 1637, for example, Jane Hawkins was punished for selling oil of mandrakes in Boston. Many other magicians and sorcerers were treated in the same manner.”

So just what defined a “witch,” anyway? Anyone who drew on folk remedies? Or even a midwife who knew more than she was supposed to?

Fischer goes into ways the Puritans’ Calvinist teaching and likely their earlier folkways combined to make them especially fearful.

As I observe, Salem itself was a cauldron of controversy from early on and a place where the Puritan invasion clashed with the existing population. Like Dover, the Puritans were latecomers there.

I’m still curious about the zealot ferocity of the Puritan outburst at the time of the infamous mistrials in Salem, 1692, in a perfect storm that may have fused an outbreak of hallucinogenic ergot in rye, a clash between traditional ways of examination versus newer ones, a gap in the governorship and jurisprudence, and a drive to curb the influence of the now well in place Friends by attacking their servants instead. Many, many other factors, perhaps even the weather, likely also come into play. All of the other angles I’ve heard point in the same direction.

One of the overlooked aspects in all the controversy is how the witch persecutions in Salem solidified the collapse of the rigid Puritan reign in New England. In a way, the old guard overplayed its hand and had to bear the consequences. With widespread revulsion at the executions and their abuse of the court system, a new strand of teaching and emphasis emerged in the Congregational churches. In another century-and-a-quarter, many of them would even become Unitarian, a far cry from the Puritan orthodoxy.

What makes witches so romantic for so many today?

Did the accused “witches” have their revenge in the end?

Even in a housing shortage

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 11 Comments

Yup, home prices went through the roof in most of the country – but not here.

A common sight throughout Downeast Maine is abandoned housing in varying stages of decay. Seeing an old dwelling like that, your initial impulse is that somebody, somewhere, ought to save it. You know, live out in the woods, free from hassles, and all that. It’s gotta have a charming history, right?  (Rusting trailers and mobile homes somehow get less sympathy, if any.)

Abandoned housing comes in varying stages of collapse.

Then reality kicks in. Most of these would cost a ton to renovate – and many are tiny. Insulation, plumbing, and wiring are only the beginning. It’s cheaper to start fresh, if you can. Jobs are scarce, often towns away, if you can find work, so unless you’re retired, that’s another strike. And if you are retired, you might check out far to the nearest doc or clinic. I have to wonder, too, why anyone would want to live that close to the highway and its noisy traffic, other than maybe getting priority plowing after a snowfall. As for the mosquitos and black flies?

Others might tell you it gets boring. No malls or big-box stores, much less neighbors or a real supermarket.

Even as a summer home, then, there are drawbacks. Wouldn’t you rather be on a lake or the ocean?

It’s not all out in the wilds, either. Eastport has three in a row here.
Each with this notice attached, declaring a building dangerous, unsafe, and not habitable.

Looking ahead to the year 2050

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been part of a study group that’s been trying to envision a sustainable future for our small corner of the globe.

It’s been an exciting exercise, actually, looking for ways we can enhance what we have in conjunction with neighboring communities.

But it’s also terrifying, when we look more broadly.

Nine billion population, up from one billion when I was born. Can the globe really carry that load? I’m doubtful, but maybe.

Let’s start with increasing urbanization. I was blown away by the fact that 75 percent of Britain is considered urbanized today.

Add to that global warming. The regions where population is booming will be scrambling for food and water. Yes, water becomes essential. As well as ways to earn a livable income.

Now consider the automation of many jobs, something that points toward income readjustment, which is being largely ignored in public discussion.

Get political, and Republicans are in utter denial about all this, something I find deeply troubling. Engage, intelligently, will you? The future of humanity is at stake. Or are you really dinosaurs, just looking only for your next meal?

According to the projections, I’m in a good place to survive this – or at least my descendants are. Yeah, the ocean will be closer to our doorstep, even if we are higher than the downtown we adore. Still, the directions on the charts point to a lot of turbulence ahead, especially desperation and violence.

Here, in these workshops, we’ve been looking at the enhanced value of tourism, seeing our place as a pocket of natural wonder. As much as I love that projection, I doubt things will be that easy.

Will Florida actually be off the map by then, along with all of its reactionary politics? Or maybe those partisans will still be denying global warming would ever happen.

Where do you see the world in just 30 years?

Or even in just six, 2030?

 

Where were the Baptists?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I’ve mentioned my bewilderment at the failure by the Church of England to serve its communicants in New England during most of the 1600s.

As well as the fact that Dover’s First Parish could have been the first Baptist church in America, beating Roger Williams in Providence, Rhode Island, by a year.

What perplexes me is that I find nothing in New Hampshire before almost 1800, although there was a church in Boston, a place where Friends struggled.

The fact is that the Baptist tradition originated as a liberal movement. We’ve seen threads of that continuing in Jimmy Carter and Bill Moyers.

In my research, I kept coming across fleeting references to Baptists during the years before the American Revolution, but curiously not much outside of Rhode Island to indicate ongoing activity in New England. They were not singled out like the Quakers as great dangers to social or godly order, even though they were still outlawed and ridiculed. Did they meet secretly, perhaps even at times other than Sunday morning? None were hanged in Boston, for one thing. In New Hampshire, they had only three congregations by 1770 – Newton, founded 1755; Madbury, adjacent to Dover; and Weare, which had a strong Quaker presence. Still, as I sense, theirs is a crucial history yet to be written.

Considering all the furor around minister Hanserd Knollys’ brief tenure in Dover, just before he began preaching definitively Baptist doctrines, as well as the support he had, I keep wondering about his legacy in the Piscataqua settlement. Somehow, he set off an unorthodox flame in the community, at least by Puritan standards.

Curiously, as I considered the matriarchal role in the continuing nurture of a faith tradition, the path led back to Thomas Roberts and his wife, Rebecca Hilton. This time I chanced across not their Quaker impact but rather a Baptist one.

Hugh Dunn Sr. built this house in New Jersey after moving from the Lamprey River and Dover in New Hampshire. He was one of the original settlers of Piscataway and a founder of the Baptist church there.

Their daughter Esther – also recorded as Hester and Easter – born around 1625 and one of the first English children in New Hampshire, married John Martin (also Martyn) around 1645 in Dover. He descends from Mayflower arrivals in Plymouth Bay. After a round of public service, they relocate to Oyster Bay on Long Island, perhaps among those who flee to avoid persecution, but in 1666 move on to New Jersey shortly after the British seized it from the Netherlands. Joined by Drake, Dunn, Gilman, Hull, and Langstaff families from New Hampshire, as well as other Baptist New Englanders, the name Piscataway soon sticks to their New Jersey community, reflecting their Piscataqua roots. Theirs was perhaps the seventh oldest Baptist congregation in America. The colony itself came under Quaker proprietorship in 1675, assuring religious liberty. Think about all that the next time you’re driving along the New Jersey Turnpike and see the signs for that exit.

That’s the last I find of Baptists in New Hampshire until a Scammon from Stratham on Great Bay – a surname that appears early among Friends – weds a Rachel Thurber of Rehoboth in southern Massachusetts in 1720. Resettling in Stratham, she struggles for 40 years, making one conversion, before moving on to Boston and being baptized into its second Baptist church.

Glory, hallelujah, and all that.

~*~

Welcome to Dover’s upcoming 400th anniversary.

 

Seaman’s Church

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment
The Congregational house of worship was constructed in 1828 along austere classical lines and proportions.
Its spire served as a landmark for mariners on the water. Somehow, it was soon known as the Seaman’s Church.
The building likely came after New England’s traditional box seating had fallen from use.

 

Anticipating the fall foliage

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

It’s a common topic of conversation this time of year in New England.

How’s the foliage shaping up?

Are drought or wetness, heat or cold, or any number of other factors impacting it negatively?

Or is it going to be another banner month across the six-state region?

Vermont and New Hampshire tourism tries to capitalize the most from the colorful outburst, but they’re hardly alone in sometimes dazzling displays. New York and Pennsylvania can also be memorable.

So here we are, trying to make the most of the outdoors before winter cold sets in all too soon.

What’s it like where you are?