e-Newsletter | October 8, 2021 |
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In anticipation of the Race & Slavery in New England Symposium, set for Monday, October 11, 2021, this week's story highlights William Lloyd Garrison's dressing down of Francis Todd and Captain Nicholas Brown with regards to their participation in the slave trade. Later this month, attend Ilisa Barbash's Zoom presentation, The Zealy Daguerreotypes: Research, Writing & Collaboration, scheduled for Thursday, October 28, 2021 at 7:00 p.m.
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The Enemies of Their Own Species: Francis Todd v.
William Lloyd Garrison
By Ghlee E. Woodworth
On October 29, 1829, the ship Francis, owned by Francis Todd of Newburyport and captained by Nicholas Brown, stopped at Herring Bay on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay. Eighty enslaved men, women and children (according to official court proceedings) were brought on board. These eighty souls had been recently purchased from traders in Calvert County, Maryland, and were to be transported to a plantation in Louisiana owned by a George B. Milligan.
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Daguerreotype of William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879). From the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Garrison Family in memory of George Thompson Garrison. |
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On November 20, an enraged William Lloyd Garrison took aim at Francis Todd and Captain Brown and fired both metaphorical barrels. The following is a transcript of his damning indictment of the two.
“BLACK LIST, Horrible news – domestic and foreign,” he exclaimed in the pages of the newspaper Genius of Universal Emancipation, published in Baltimore.
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Original text from "Genius of Universal Emancipation" Black List story. |
Captain Nicholas Brown
(1784-1868)
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THE SHIP FRANCIS
This ship, as I mentioned in our last number, sailed a few weeks since from this port, with a cargo of slaves, for the New Orleans market. I do not repeat the fact because it is a rare instance of domestic piracy or because the case was attended with extraordinary circumstances; for the horrible traffic is briskly carried on, and the transportation was affected in the ordinary manner. I merely wish to illustrate New England humanity and morality. I am resolved to cover with thick infamy all who are concerned in this nefarious business.
I have stated that the ship Francis sails from my native place, Newburyport (Massachusetts), is commanded by a Yankee captain, and owned by a townsman, named
FRANCIS TODD
Of Captain Nicholas Brown I should have expected better conduct. It is no worse to fit out piratical cruisers, or to engage in the foreign slave trade, than to pursue a similar trade along our own coasts; and the men who have the wickedness to participate therein, for the purpose of heaping up wealth should be SENTENCED TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT FOR LIFE, they are the enemies of their own species--highway robbers and murderers; and their final doom will be, unless they speedily repent, to occupy the lowest depths of perdition.
I know that our laws make a distinction in this matter. I know that the man who is allowed to freight his vessels with slaves at home, for a distant market, would be thought worthy of death if he should take a similar freight on the coast of Africa, but I know, too, that this distinction is absurd, and at war with the common sense of mankind, and that God and good men regard it with abhorrence.
I recollect that it was always a mystery in Newburyport how Mr. Todd contrived to make profitable voyages to New Orleans and other places, when other merchants, with as fair an opportunity to make money and sending at the same ports, at the same time, invariably made fewer successful speculations. The mystery seems to be unraveled. Any man can gather up riches if he does not care by what means they are obtained.
The Francis carried off seventy-five slaves chained in a narrow space between decks. Captain Brown originally intended to take one-hundred-and-fifty of these unfortunate creatures; but another hard-hearted ship master underbid him in the price of passage for the remaining moiety. Captain B. we believe is a Mason. Where was his charity or brotherly kindness? I respectfully request the editor of the Newburyport Herald to copy this article or publish a statement of facts contained herein-not for the purpose of giving information to Mr. Todd, for I shall send him a copy of this number, but in order to enlighten the public mind in that quarter.
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The Newburyport Herald did publish this searing indictment, and Francis Todd responded with a libel suit in Baltimore, where Garrison was found guilty of “contriving and unlawfully, wickedly and maliciously, intending to hurt, injure and vilify one Francis Todd, and to deprive him of his good name, fame and reputation, and to bring him into great contempt, scandal, infamy and disgrace, on the twentieth day of November, in the year eighteen-hundred-and-twenty-nine.”
Francis Todd, claiming that he had “no vindictive feelings to gratify,” offered to withdraw his suit and ask the court to dismiss the case if Garrison would issue “a proper (public) apology and recantation of the calumny.” Garrison not only refused, but he also spent his six weeks in a Baltimore prison writing poetry on the walls of his cell and penning his own account of the trial, published in Boston as, A brief sketch of the trial of William Lloyd Garrison, for an alleged libel on Francis Todd, of Newburyport, Mass.
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Garrison poem written while imprisoned in Baltimore. |
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Todd also sued Garrison for damages in the amount of five thousand dollars and this case was covered in detail in the press. Though Todd was awarded damages in the sum of one thousand dollars, it seems that Francis Todd never received his check and Garrison was even more enraged than when he first heard the news of the Francis’ fateful voyage.
“How do I bear up under my adversities? I answer—like the oak—like the Alps—unshaken, stormproof. Opposition, and abuse, and slander, and prejudice and judicial tyranny are like oil to the flame of my zeal. I am not discouraged; I am not dismayed; but bolder and more confident than ever. I say to my persecutors, —I bid you defiance. Let the courts condemn me to fine and imprisonment for denouncing oppression: Am I to be frightened by dungeons and chains? Can they humble my spirit? Do I not remember that I am an American citizen? And as a citizen, a freeman and, what is more, a being accountable to God? I will not hold my peace on the subject of African oppression. If need be, who would not die a martyr to such a cause?”
Next week: Garrison’s chaotic return to Newburyport.
Some material in this story is excerpted from Tiptoe Through the Tombstones by historian, author and 12th generation Newburyport-er Ghlee E. Woodworth. Find it and Newburyport Clipper Heritage Trail - Volume 1, featuring a series of self-guided history tours, here.
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New Life for the Landscape
The last two weeks have seen a major transformation in the cobble courtyard behind the Cushing House. This is Phase Two of a three part landscape restoration and rehabilitation begun in 2016.
The cobble courtyard, along with the laundry yard, was part of the working landscape for the Cushing family. The cobble, or river stones, date to the Cushing's occupancy in the early 19th century. Over the decades the landscape was undermined with freeze and thaw cycles, uneven grades and lack of proper drainage.
The goals of this major preservation initiative are to provide barrier free access and a long-term treatment plan for the grass areas, river stones and granite. The work has been designed to maintain the historical integrity of the landscape while allowing for 21st century use.
The work has been funded, in part, by the Newburyport Community Preservation Committee through the Community Preservation Act. We are grateful for their support of the museum's preservation projects.
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The courtyard before construction. |
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The courtyard construction involved removal, salvage and cleaning of all river stones and granite pieces. A gravel borrow sub-base was laid for resetting the cobbles, granite and the bluestone path. All work was done by Verne Fisher and his team from Visionary Landscapes. (Photo credit Bob Watts.) |
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The crew resetting the grade. (Photo credit Bob Watts.) |
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The completed courtyard with the original cobbles reset and a bluestone path to provide barrier free access.
Detail of the 19th century cobbles that have been set in polymeric sand to provide stability.
(Photo credits Sally Chandler.)
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The museum will now be able to use this space for programs and events. (Photo credit Sally Chandler.) |
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Woman on the MOON
Once More and Then...a blog by Bethany Groff Dorau
My dead friends really do follow me around this town. Last night I ran into one of them on State Street, and we had a drink together.
My momentary companion was Offin Boardman, a well-dressed, stout gentleman of 54, dead since 1811. Or, rather, on the first evening that felt like winter was coming, I remembered a vignette I once wrote, based on details in Boardman’s diary and Marine Society records, a moment captured in detail that revealed a world to me. I was researching this remarkable man, who was one of Newburyport’s first Revolutionary privateers, captured two British ships in one day, and was in turn captured and imprisoned three separate times by the British. He escaped all three times, returning home to eat and drink as much as possible for the remainder of his life. But that is a story for another time.
What I remember about this scene is that it was the first time in my life as a writer, researcher and historian, that I was able to recreate a moment in full (as much as one can), based on fact, or at least on documentary evidence. I know roughly what he was wearing, as he mentions clothes recently purchased in his diary. I know the weather, the names of his comrades, the location of the Marine Society. I know what he was drinking. The picture came together so completely, so beautifully, it took my breath away.
Remember it with me…it is a dark night in February. It is 1802 and Boardman is on his way to the Marine Society, where he has been a member since 1793, for a regular Thursday meeting. The snow is thick on the ground, but it is a clear night, viciously cold. Boardman is wearing a long brown beaver coat with a broad collar and has taken his sleigh to town from his 300-acre (now 230) country estate in Newbury, presently the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm.
He purchased the estate in 1797 from Mary Lee Tracy, the widow of renowned Newburyport merchant and ship owner, Nathaniel Tracy, for $12,800. He is heavily laden with “a pipe of gin and puncheon rum,” a powerful spirit aged in huge wooden casks known as puncheons. Commonly produced in Trinidad and Tobago, this rum was intended to be used in punch. It would have been lethal straight. Boardman imported and sold rum from his wharf, advertising in the Newburyport Herald and Country Gazette in 1799 that he had “Excellent St. Croix and St. Vincent Rum – cheap for cash.”
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Boardman was known for his rum punch, and like all his friends, he made it with a standard five ingredients – rum, spices, sugar, water and fruit.
Whether his fruit was more exotic or his rum more liberal is lost to the ages, but the excavation of his privy, a time capsule of items thrown away while he lived at the farm, revealed thirty punch bowls, broken, one imagines, as a direct consequence of the paint-stripper strength of the spirit within. That’s thirty, and in 15 years. That’s two broken punch bowls a year, which, I suppose, seems about right. In addition, there were 37 bottles of varying types and 51 glasses.
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Rum punch has an interesting history of its own, surpassed only, perhaps, by the gentleman carrying it that night and the awesome vessel it was served in. Rum punch became popular in the 16th century, and because of its exotic ingredients, citrus and spices, it was associated with travel, trade and social standing. It loosely followed the social trajectory of chocolate from the Americas, coffee from Arabia and tea from China, beginning as rare exotics and becoming widespread, with their corresponding accessories.
There are a million recipes for punch, some hot, some with milk and even eggs, but all have the same basic five elements, and all were served in bowls. Some punches were made with brandy, some with gin, but the most popular spirit by far was rum. It was cheap, potent and flavorful. Punch was made at the table in one-, two- and three-quart bowls, and ladled into cups of all descriptions with a strainer over the glass.
The garnish that has become so present in the modern cocktail was used to advertise the freshness of the fruit in one’s punch. When fresh fruit was not available, preserves, wine and even vinegar were used to add a sour element. Many punch bowls were lined with concentric circles to be used as measures for mixing punch at the table, and they were also often decorated with toasts or ribald sayings, particularly with images of a fish and the words “keep me swimming,” or another popular line, “once more and then….”
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Jonathan Greenleaf, a Newbury shipbuilder, was presented with this English Delft punch bowl in 1752 by a merchant from Edinburgh, Scotland, for whom Greenleaf built the ship pictured. Newburyport shipbuilders constructed vessels for sale abroad as well as for New England shipmasters and merchants. On loan to the museum from Edmund G. and Francie P. Noyes. Courtesy image. |
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Punch bowls were also often decorated with ship and maritime scenes and given as gifts when a ship was launched or a voyage completed, and taverns frequented by sailors were called “punch houses,” one assumes for the beverage served, and not the pugnacious behavior of the drinkers.
The punch bowl continues to be part of popular culture, as when former Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin referred to himself as “the man who takes the punch bowl away just when the party gets going.”
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Offin Boardman (1748-1811). Courtesy image from Old Town and the Waterside, Peter Benes. From the collections of the Museum of Old Newbury.
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But back to Boardman. The memory of capturing his walk up State Street in as much detail as the evidence allowed is a powerful one, though I have used the same kinds of sources hundreds of times since then. It allowed me to see and feel the presence of a person long dead in whose footsteps I walk. And so, I followed Offin Boardman’s substantial footsteps not to the Marine Society, but to the Port Tavern, where I shimmied up to the bar and ordered a rum punch. The bartender laughed. “Not too many people order rum punch these days,” he said. “I know,” I said. “I’m toasting an old friend.”
And so, dear reader, if you are walking down State Street on a cool fall night in two hundred years, park your hovercraft for a few minutes, find a bar (I firmly believe these will remain, more or less, as they are), order a rum punch and raise a toast to me and Offin Boardman. And if you listen hard, you may just hear the faintest clink on your glass. Cheers!
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Museum Receives Grant from Mass Humanities SHARP Program
We are pleased to share the news announced this week by Mass Humanities that the museum is one of 90 organizations in Massachusetts awarded a SHARP (Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan) grant award from Mass Humanities.
Grants were made possible through funding provided to the National Endowment for the Humanities by the American Rescue Plan.
“The SHARP grants are another significant step in the journey to sustain the humanities at the local level,” said Brian Boyles, executive director of Mass Humanities. “As we continue to combat COVID-19, these funds will save jobs, build capacity and allow organizations to develop new programs to serve their communities.”
The museum's award of $11,472 will support programming and exhibitions, preservation projects and marketing efforts to sustain the humanities in Newburyport and contiguous communities.
Susan Edwards, collections and development manager at the Museum of Old Newbury, says, "We are grateful to Mass Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities for their continued support. The funds will allow us to rebuild our audience through new and innovative programming and exhibitions; enhance our part-time staffing and marketing efforts; and care for our facilities."
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Learn about upcoming programs, register, find Zoom links and catch up on previous presentations here. All of our virtual programs are free, however donations are gratefully accepted to help defray speaker fees.
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Race & Slavery in New England Symposium
The Governor's Academy, One Elm Street, Byfield, Mass.
In-Person or Virtual Event
Writers and historians will bring various views and expertise to a scrutiny of New England's deep involvement in slavery. Engage in-person (or virtually) with complex issues of race and slavery in New England, from colonial times to just after the Civil War.
This is an in-person event. On-site ticket limit: 200.
Made possible by the generous support of The Governor's Academy, First Religious Society, Eastern Bank, Historic New England and Newburyport Bank.
• For admittance to the in-person symposium, proof of vaccination and a photo ID must be presented at the on-site registration table, and in-person attendees are required to wear masks indoors. Masks will be available.
• The Governor's Academy reserves the right to cancel the event, at its discretion, for reasons of health & safety concerning the coronavirus.
Fees include all presentations, lunch (with vegetarian/non-vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options), hot and cold refreshments throughout the day and access to all recordings.
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The Zealy Daguerreotypes: Research, Writing and Collaboration
Virtual Event
Ilisa Barbash, curator of visual anthropology at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, will discuss the research and work behind the production of the book To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes (Aperture/Peabody Museum Press 2020), which features essays by prominent scholars from the disciplines of history, anthropology, art history and American studies.
The book is a profound consideration of some of the most challenging images in the history of photography: 15 daguerreotypes of Alfred, Delia, Drana, Fassena, Jack, Jem and Renty—men and women of African descent who were enslaved in South Carolina. Made in 1850 by photographer Joseph T. Zealy for Harvard professor Louis Agassiz, the daguerreotypes were rediscovered at the Peabody Museum in 1976. This talk will highlight some of its various topics, including the identities of the seven people depicted in the daguerreotypes, the close relationship between photography and race in the 19th century, and the ways contemporary artists have used the daguerreotypes to critique institutional racism in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Puzzle Me This...
Oil on canvas portrait of "Flowing Gold," a favorite chestnut horse belonging to Florence Evans Bushee. "Flowing Gold" is portrayed standing on Newman Road in Newbury, adjacent to Mrs. Bushee's farm. The portrait was painted by American artist Howard Everett Smith (1885-1970). Smith was a student of artists Edmund Tarbell and Howard Pyle and was known for his illustrations, landscapes and equestrian portraits.
From the collections of the Museum of Old Newbury.
Click on image to begin.
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Something is Always Cooking at the Museum
As the air turns crisp, one flavor comes to mind: pumpkin! Joseph Berger shares his gluten free recipe for the ubiquitous Autumn nosh.
Gluten Free Pumpkin Muffins
3 eggs
2 tablespoons molasses
1 15-ounce can pumpkin purée
1 3/4 cups (7 7/8 ounces) brown rice flour blend
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup soft unsalted butter
Preheat oven to 375ºF. Grease 12-count muffin tin or line with paper or grease papers. Whisk eggs, molasses and pumpkin purée and set aside. Whisk together dry ingredients. Blend very well, making sure xanthan gum is evenly distributed. Add soft butter to dry mix and beat well. Mixture will look like coarse sand. Add egg mixture, a little at a time. Beat well with electric beater for 2 minutes, until very fluffy. Divide mixture among the muffin cups in tin. Let rest 10 minutes. Batter will rise above the level of each cup. Bake for 25 minutes, or until middle springs back when lightly touched. Remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes before removing from tin. Best served warm. Serves 12.
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During this difficult period of COVID-19, we rely on your support more than ever. We continue to develop new, online programs for you to enjoy and keep us connected and look forward to in-person events as protocols for safety loosen. We hope, if you are able, that you will consider a donation to the museum. Thank you for your continued support.
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Museum e-Newsletter made possible through the
generosity of our sponsors:
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Museum of Old Newbury
98 High Street
Newburyport, MA 01950
978-462-2681
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