Tag: New England

I’m still in the dark about how they actually conducted business

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

There were no banks and you couldn’t write checks.

Were dried fish and lumber so valuable in Britain and the Continent that you could still make a fat profit shipping them across the ocean? Furs, I can understand, as well as the hunger for gold and silver, which may have fueled speculators who were inevitably disappointed. Plus fish, likely dried.

As for paying your workers? A daily portion of rum or the like was apparently often part of the deal.

By the way, Quakers were in the forefront of developing banks and insurance and even packet shipping in time.

The early colonies had layers of ownership, starting with those demanding annual quitrents for the land you would clear and build on or have “purchased” with any improvements. Then there were the chartered investors, like Lord Saye and Sele and Lord Brooke in New Hampshire’s case, who somehow expected to make a profit overseeing the place. They still had obligations to other investors, like the Council for New England. I’m really unclear how all of that worked in practice or what they got from “selling” their charter to Massachusetts.

The best I can come up with is that it was a kind of private enterprise tax, though I’m not sure what was offered in return. Like Mafia “protection” or layers of graft?

And that’s even before getting to England’s heavy mercantile system that hampered American entrepreneurial opportunities. The colonists were expected to provide raw materials for manufacture in England before being sold at hefty markups in the New World, too.

How did the colonists ever thrive, all their hard work aside?

I’m thinking it’s almost as vaporous as bitcoins.

Things I wasn’t expecting when I started drafting my newest book

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Yeah, I know about the adage, “Write about what you know,” but I’ve come to see that advice needs to be balanced by “write about what you want to know.”

What we might call a creative tension. If you’re a writer, I hope that helps.

My latest book, which started out as a humble and brief profile of Dover’s Quaker Meeting but turned into a contrarian New England history, could be presented as one example.

I mean, Dover is still seen as a shadow to neighboring Portsmouth, which is much smaller and more uppity. Get real!

Back to the book at hand and the research that’s gone into it. Here are some things that surprised me.

  1. Thomas Roberts as a cofounder of the settlement, rather than William Hilton. That alone alters the traditional telling.
  2. The Devonshire connection, which gave Dover a much different culture to build on rather than the one the Puritans presented.
  3. The extent of New Hampshire’s role as a haven for dissidents and misfits.
  4. Puritans as less than monolithic. They were primed for revolution but full of insecurities.
  5. Richard Waldron’s power in Boston. He was more than a rich hick in the sticks.
  6. The crucial impact of a few key provision in New Hampshire’s agreement to come under Massachusetts management. A male didn’t have to be a member in good standing in the town church in order to hold land or to vote in town affairs.
  7. Dover Friends Meeting as one of the seven oldest in America. It has a more prominent place in Quaker history than has been recognized.
  8. Early English resettlement of Maine after the French and Indian devastations coming around 1730 rather than 30 years later.
  9. Dover’s textile mills’ predating those in Lowell, Lawrence, and Manchester. In fact, the founders of Lowell looked to Dover for inspiration. In other words, we weren’t a small, insignificant mill town.
  10. The Sorcerer who was a member of Meeting. You’ll have to read the book to find out about him.

Order your copy of Quaking Dover at your favorite bookstore. Or request it at your public library.

Facing some hard publishing decisions

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As a commercial book venture, my Dover history would be considered marginal at best.

Quite simply, short of a breakout, it targets a tiny audience.

The city itself is small – a population of slightly more than 30,000. And while the surrounding area runs around a half-million, that’s still small by book publishing markers.

Additionally, my work focuses on the city’s second-oldest congregation, an even tinier potential readership. While that element opens another market of fellow Quakers around the globe, it’s still small.

As for history buffs? They have their niches.

At the outset, at least, any for-profit book publisher would see this as a high-risk, losing bet.

I am, of course, hoping Dover’s 400th anniversary this year will give it a bounce.

And, as a microcosm of a snarky, contrarian New England history, Quaking Dover just might entertain a wider reception.

I mean, how many people do you think would have been interested in covered bridges in Madison County, Iowa?

~*~

One commercial publisher specializing in local histories did take a look but quickly backed off. The editor didn’t like the first-person voice of my book, for starters, and got spooked by the fact this volume hadn’t been vetted by religious authorities.

A few others were simply looking for an author-subsidized co-publishing deal.

That returned me to the self-publishing world I found in ebooks and then, for paper editions, at Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.

As much as I like ebooks, for reasons I’ve previously discussed here at the Barn, I very much felt this was one that needed to be available primarily in a hands-on physical book form.

While Amazon has no upfront costs for an author in its print-on-demand paperbacks, physical bookstores refuse to carry them because they would have to buy the volumes at retail and then add a markup to the price to cover their own costs. They rightly complain it puts them in an unfair position.

But then came the announcement that my ebook flagship, Smashwords.com, was merging with Draft2Digital, which specializes in producing print-on-demand. Both companies have arrangements with distributors and retailers, and both offer their services to writers for free.

The arrangement also gives me more flexibility in marketing and special sales opportunities.

In short, count me in. I’m truly proud of the result.

Check it out through your favorite bricks-and-mortar bookstore.

Whither the Revels?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

EARLIER RED BARN POSTS have touted of Revels as a unique Boston-based arts institution that presents joyous performances blending story, theater, music, dance, literature, history, and much else from many varied world peoples into a magical collective experience. Sound amazing? It’s been. Everyone in our family has delighted in these offerings, no matter how eclectic the theme. As the motto proclaims, “Revels creates musical and theatrical events and educational programs that celebrate cultural and seasonal traditions from around the world, for and with the communities we serve.” It’s even spawned similar groups across the country, as I learned while living in Baltimore and had friends active in the neighboring Washington productions.

While many Revels programs are centered on solstices and equinoxes, the most popular one, far and away, leaves most of the public knowing our organization only as the “Boston Christmas Revels” and then being surprised to hear that Revels Inc. also offers workshops, concerts, pub sings, children’s courses, and a harbor cruise or two throughout the year. I know I’m forgetting some others. That successful “Christmas” identity, for what it’s worth, created a branding problem that’s finally being rectified, in part by rebadging the holiday extravaganza as Midwinter Revels. In addition, let me point out that the flagship attraction has always included many decidedly non-Christian and secular elements, as well as some familiar carols sung by the entire audience. Quite simply, these shows are not about baby Jesus front and center.

My family’s treks from New Hampshire to those Yule pageants in Harvard’s Christopher Wren-inspired Sanders Theatre (which seems to come straight out of Shakespeare or Harry Potter) quickly became a highlight of our year. It meant a day exploring the big city itself as well as across the Charles in cosmopolitan Cambridge, where you could find yourself in amazement at the many languages heard along its sidewalks. We’d always stop at the Harvard Coop for new calendars if nothing else. On those outings the family was introduced to subway rides, bowls of Vietnamese Pho in Chinatown, even the coffee and wine isles of Trader Joe’s back before there was one close to home. How could I forget watching our seven-year-old be absolutely enthralled by a Leonardo da Vinci theme full of Renaissance music in Italian and Latin and featuring Revels legendary founder John Langstaff in what turned out to be his final appearances, not that I could have dragged the kid to a concert of the same program. She was hooked.

Once I retired from the newsroom, I became a charter member of the Revels Singers, a marvelous, non-auditioned community chorus, which then gave me something of an insider’s view of the organization itself, as well as of a broader Harvard University outlook, not that everyone in the ensemble had Yard credentials. It was more of what we might call atmosphere, breathe it in. Believe me, I never imagined being able to sing at such a glorious level. The rehearsals were well worth a two-hour commute down and another two hours home each week.

Just seeing others go through the agony of auditioning for the next Yule show and feeling crushed at being rejected or knowing the sacrifices ahead if they were selected was edifying. So this is what Broadway actors go through? At least they get paid.

But then we faced our move much further to the northeast, plus the Covid outbreak.

 

LIKE OTHER PERFORMING ARTS arts organizations, the company took hard financial hits from Covid. The highly anticipated 50th anniversary show was scrapped, replaced with a shortened virtual retrospective. That had to hurt, financially and creatively. A renewed outbreak of the vicious virus forced the last half of the next year’s run to be cancelled on short notice. Gone was half of the ticket revenue and related sales of CD albums and related goods in the monumental lobby. In addition, seating for that and the most recent run was reduced due to Covid precautions – down from the 1,000 max that the fabulously intimate auditorium normally packs in. Pre-Covid, sold-out dates were the norm.

On the positive side, Revels began offering online video streaming after the live run, something that allowed us to keep up with the latest manifestations from 353 miles away.

From our perspective, though, what’s resulted is two duds. They just didn’t hold our interest, no matter the quality of the video production.

What worries us is the pandering nature of seeking a more diversified or at least younger audience, even as I applaud shifting from “Christmas” to “Midwinter” in labeling the event. It’s like Netflix or Disney took over.

The first theme in response was set in a decrepit London pub that had just been sold to a naïve American couple. I’m still disturbed by the idea of placing a family-friendly show in a bar, OK? Like “Cheers” from the other side of the Big Pond? Besides, there was none of the mystery and majesty that frame the Revels experience. Quite simply, it felt cheap. The musical line introduced commercial pop tunes known to almost everyone, even me, a far cry from Revels’ usual exotic folk and classical foundation that would take us places we’d never previously imagined. Those tunes were merely predictable, cliché, far from Revels’ usual intrepid discoveries or original compositions. There are many other places ticket buyers can go for a secular Christmas experience, high among them the Boston Pops. So far, at least, Revels has avoided anything Santa. Thankfully. Ho-ho-ho.

The latest entry, set in drab Ellis Island a hundred years back, is even more troubling. The storyline tried to mix Irish Catholics and Czech Jews along with Mexicans already in the USA. It felt forced, artificial, ultimately superficial. Actress Carolyn Saxton was squandered in a preachy, stocky, unessential Spirit of Place role. Hers wasn’t the only polemic that told rather than showed. A “Christmas in the Trenches” sequence was a further reach, even with the German carols, which at least were more seasonal than the Irish “Long Way from Tipperary” and “Wild Rover.” The storyline definitely veered away from any Czech winter opportunities.

The show finally burst free of its wooden action after intermission with some hot Mexican dancing and singing, especially Ricardo Holguin’s flying tenor and fluid movement. If anyone should be in line for David Coffin’s jack-of-all-trades MC replacement (should that ever come), Ricky could be the one. But I am left having no idea what those South of the Border flares had to do with Midwinter.

More troubling was the way that so much we anticipate each year is being reduced in size and impact. The words to “Lord of the Dance” were recast to eliminate the Lord Shiva comparison to Jesus, which has always troubled me, yet in universalizing the thought, it wound up greatly diluting the original. The powerful concluding “Sussex Mummers Carol” was reworded and shortened, and the abbreviated mummers’ play unintentionally announced that winter was already over. So why are we here? I didn’t even see any of the traditional morris dancers, unless they were carrying stag horns. The sword dancers, I’m told, are their own discipline. Praise be, even if for most of their scene, they were five rather than the usual six I remember!

Overall, quite simply, where had the enchantment gone?

I believe that points to a bigger problem for Revels and other arts realms today. Let’s call it the tension between artistic expression versus marketing.

 

AS BACKGROUND, in Revels’ evolution each year’s holiday show went from a British-centered Christmas party to a celebration with a storyline probing selected national, regional, and cultural themes. Acadian/Cajun was a recent one, with Renaissance Venice for another as well as a northwest Spanish hike on the holy pilgrims’ Way, in addition to Scandinavian countries and then American roots. I think back, too, on an engaging Armenian-Georgia Republic production and another from woolly Russia. Ireland, Wales, Scotland, parts of England, and especially Victorian London also delivered profound entertainments.

At its core, though, are what should be some trademarked, let’s call them sacred, scenes – Sidney Carter’s “Lord of the Dance” that leads the audience out into the Civil War memorial lobby in a serpentine line dance at the intermission, as well as the eerie Abbots Bromley horn dance of stag deer in moonlight once we return to our seats. Add to that the seemingly improvised mummers’ play, a showstopping sword dance, Susan Cooper’s dark-night poem “The Shortest Day” that concludes with “Welcome, Yule!” shouted by the entire audience as they burst into the “Sussex Mummers Carol” blessing that also raises tears and goosebumps with its soaring soprano descant and artificial snowflakes falling from above. In that concluding flash, no choir in Greater Boston is more heavenly, not even the Tanglewood Festival’s with the symphony.

Quite simply, we are disturbed by the tinkering we’re seeing in these essentials. Yes, the Revels are ultimately Anglophile, even Elizabethan or Edwardian, saturated in brocaded deep reds and golds, no matter where the storyline ventures. Don’t deny what’s in Revels’ bones and blood. And don’t ever count me as an Anglophile, no matter how much I’m venting in its defense. Remember, when in Rome …

 

COMPARED TO OTHER Boston-based arts enterprises, Revels has lacked deep-pockets, despite the sumptuousness of its holiday productions. Its passionate core staff is surrounded by many dedicated volunteers, but aging does mean a change at the helm is in the works, especially with the upcoming retirement of its artistic director a year hence. Something similar has already been transitioning with its music director, the other top creative position, though I’m not convinced it’s securely in place.

In the performing arts, after all, not all of the drama transpires on stage. Revels is no doubt already in the early stages of planning next year’s Midwinter plot and accompanying score.

I would hate to think, as the Bard said, “Our revels now are ended.”

Provincial? Richard Waldron was prominent in Boston and beyond, too

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Although he is best known for his persecution of the three Quaker women missionaries and his mock war game that captured hundreds of Natives, which led in time to the devastating attacks on Cochecho Village and Oyster River as well as decades of violence ending in 1763 with the French and Indian War, Major Richard Waldron (or Walderne, in its alternative spelling) could easily be the subject of a fat biography of his own, if a very resourceful historian would rise to the challenge.

His influence and power ranged far beyond his mills at the great falls of the Cochecho River. He was Speaker of the Massachusetts General Court, or Assembly, for multiple terms and even owned a substantial house in Boston. His ships ranged the seas, where two of his children died doing commerce. And there are good reasons I call him a perfect villain in my book Quaking Dover.

Through him, though, I sense that Dover had some solid connections with the powers in Boston, rather than existing just an outpost on the frontier. It alters my perception of sparsely settled colonial New England.

Just how did he amass so much wealth, especially? Were his leadership skills mostly along the lines of a bully or did he have some sophisticated means of influence?

It’s fair to ask if anyone else cast such a long shadow over New Hampshire’s course or how he would stack up in comparison to better known Boston figures.

Let me be clearer, he could be the subject of a hot book or movie or maybe a mini-series.

About those taken into captivity

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Learning of the length and bloodshed of border warfare between New England and New France comes as a surprise to many Americans.

One of the more startling facets is the tales of English hostages who were taken to Canada by Natives receiving payment for each person they brought north.

Some captives were ransomed by family and returned home, leaving the impression that the French were interested mostly in added revenue. You know, like legal piracy, or a landbound privateering. Maybe even as a kind of generous sympathy on behalf of the captors. Many, as I’m seeing, were wives.

Others, though, never returned, leaving the mysterious impression that they chose to remain, perhaps indulging in a more sensually rich culture than the Puritan world of their past. And perhaps some did.

The French were, however, at a distinct disadvantage in the colonial warfare and settlement. They were outnumbered by the British four to one, by many estimates. Or five to one, from another I’ve encountered.

One way for the French to build up their population was by immediately baptizing the Protestant captives into the Roman Catholic faith. For single women, this could soon be complicated by marriage and childbirth – she would not be allowed to take her children if she was “rescued” or “redeemed” and returned to New England, perhaps as a widow. Becoming a nun was another option.

Yes, further complicating the picture is the fact that some of the captives did in time become Catholic priests or monastics. As a consequence, there would be no place for them in New England without their renouncing that faith.

So far, I’ve come across no indications that the kidnapping ran in the other direction.

~*~

The definitive examination of the cases seems to be Emma Lewis Coleman’s two-volume New England Captives Carried to Canada between 1677 and 1760 during the French and Indian wars (published in 1925).

My book Quaking Dover presents two of the attacks, though there were other serious incidents in the town.

As I was saying about wanting to learn more?

The four original towns of New Hampshire differed from the start

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

For most of the first century, Dover dominated both New Hampshire and neighboring Maine.

It was the core of population, for one thing, as well as the oldest continuing settlement.

It also had significant water power, unlike Strawbery Banke, the future Portsmouth.

But Portsmouth, in turn, was closer to the Atlantic and had a viable harbor, leading it to become a center for adventure capitalists and merchants plying the ocean for trade at the same time Dover’s fishing focus diminished, in part a consequence of the sawdust in the water from the lumber trade.

Hampton (1636) and Exeter (1638) were both founded by men seeking religious freedom from Massachusetts. How’s that for a turn of affairs as well as a challenge to the argument that the latter was established in a quest for religious liberty while New Hampshire folks were interested only in lucrative gain?

Hampton long remained the most agricultural of the lot. Exeter did have water power for mills both there and in today’s Newmarket, yet it soon aligned with some powerful Puritan families. As did a elite portion of Hampton.

There were even the poor collected off the streets of London and shipped to New England, who may have then drifted northward.

Maine, meanwhile, began to coalesce around York, one town over from Dover.

Today, each of them remains somehow unique, within a New England identity.

Hampton, for instance, has a suburban sprawl feel with colonial touches. Exeter, with its prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy, could easily be one of the old towns abutting Boston but yet isn’t. The novelist John Irving calls it Gravesend. Continuing on, Portsmouth is a magnet for wealthy residents and resembles wealthy port towns all along the New England coast. George Washington, after all, did both sleep and worship there. It definitely has a superiority complex. And Dover, once a major textile mills and railroad center, is taking off as a family-friendly town with a viable, pedestrian-welcoming, downtown. It has, to me, the most practical yet visionary community spirit.

The differences are a subject well worth investigating. In the meantime, I’m keeping my focus on everything touching Dover.

It is, after all, the center of my new book and the city’s 400th anniversary as the oldest of all.

A few things that surprised me about early Dover

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In researching my new book, Quaking Dover, new findings pointed me in fresh directions. Sometimes they came in examining something I knew a little about already. Here are a few:

  1. Dover was a wilder place than you’d expect. At one point, it was a haven for harassed leaders and dissidents from Massachusetts, and for decades its frontier was torn by massacres, raids, and scalpings — much longer than anywhere in the Wild West.
  2. Despite its upstream location on the Piscataqua River, Dover emerged as New England’s third oldest permanent settlement and the seventh oldest in the United States. That makes New Hampshire the second-oldest state in New England, rather than Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, or Vermont.
  3. The earliest mills were for sawing wood rather than grinding grain. Shipbuilding and shipping, requiring barrels and boxes, were major industries. Food could be imported.
  4. Dover nearly had the first Baptist church in America, but its minister fled town, along with some followers who established Piscataway, New Jersey — named for the Piscataqua River.
  5. Edward Starbuck, sire of the surname in the New World, was elder of the town church until he ran afoul of its practice of baptizing children and its objections to the length of his hair. He left Dover to become a founder of Nantucket, where his family became well-known Quakers. His son repeatedly returned to Dover.
  6. The Quaker movement arrived in Dover earlier than has been acknowledged. Two of the three men hanged in Boston had visited Dover less than a month before — the third had been in town the previous year. Shortly afterward, three women missionaries in Dover were tied to the tail of an ox cart, banished, and ordered whipped in every town to the south. Even so, a third of the population of Dover soon identified as Quaker.
  7. Women were coequals in the Quaker movement, illustrated by many of Dover’s recorded ministers over the years.
  8. Early settlement of Maine was largely across the river from Dover. Access by water was more like crossing the street nowadays. Kittery House, named after a manor in England, sat in today’s Eliot, opposite Dover Point. Its proprietor, Nicholas Shapleigh, gave crucial protection to Quakers. Dover Quaker Meeting had meetinghouses in both Eliot and Berwick, close to the homes and farms of many members. Later generations of Dover Friends fanned out across the state, where their surnames remain quite visible.
  9. John Greenleaf Whittier was famed across the country as an abolitionist and poet, but Whittier Falls and Whittier Street in Dover were named for his uncle. The poet’s mother, on the other hand, grew up as a member of Dover Meeting and married in its meetinghouse.
  10. Landmark Tuttle’s Red Barn, a popular market at what was proclaimed America’s oldest family-owned and operated farm, was home to generations of Quakers. That “oldest” distinction is challenged by descendants of Thomas and Rebecca Roberts, themselves with a Quaker identity and founders of the Piscataqua settlement itself.

Order your copy of Quaking Dover at your favorite bookstore. Or request it at your public library.