Hale wrote this memoir for his grandsons in the 1870s. When we last left Joshua Hale, it was 1832 and he was 19 years old, sick with cholera and isolated on a ship full of coffee in Amsterdam's harbor. Previous installments can be found in the newsletter archive beginning on June 18. It is interesting to note his deep involvement in trading with southern states and products made by enslaved people and his lack of comment on slavery, even from the vantage point of the 1870s. 

Cargo being unloaded in Amsterdam, circa 1850. Drawing by Willem Hekking, Jr. Amsterdam City Archives.

We took in cargo and steerage passengers and 2 in the cabin, Mrs. Haas and her son Frederick, and he it was who used to tie his mother’s bonnet strings to the small bell tongue when she sat, as she often did, just under the bell, and [then]loose it, when he thought she would discover the trick. Mrs. Haas was one night very much frightened as there was a school of whales [that] came near and, as we had that day killed a sheep, she thought they could smell it, and so were trying to get [at us], and was very anxious to have us throw the meat all overboard for the grampus to eat. But we kept the meat, and eat [sic] it, and I have no doubt enjoyed it well.

When just to the eastward of the port of Halifax , we passed a transport ship with soldiers onboard, and then the lady was sure we should be attacked by pirates, and she talked in German to the steerage passengers and so we saw them coming on deck with their guns all loaded, ready to fight if necessary, and when they found out the vessel was an English ship with soldiers carrying home to England they had a good laugh at the lady’s expense.

I made several more voyages as mate and in May 1833 I sailed from Savannah to Liverpool as Captain, my first voyage as such, and I was very fortunate in our passages, and [it] was only 76 days before we arrived in Boston, all safe, and before I was 21 years old.

I remained in the Brig Alice for two years more. Brother Thomas, who had built the ship Persia with Uncle Eben Hale and brother Josiah sailed her from Newburyport to New Orleans. Then he was offered and was chosen Vice President of the Commercial Insurance Company of New York, accepted the offer and left the ship in New Orleans, and I took charge of her, and Captain Andrew W. Millimore took the Alice. I was in the Persia about one year and then we sold her and built the ship Geneva.

After we sold the Persia I was feeling so well again and preferring to remain on shore, was offered the position of Vice President and Inspector of the Union Insurance Company of New York, with Mr. Jeremiah P. Tappan as President and accepted it, and went into the office ... but soon had from [the] same causes as before to resign and go to sea again. My headaches came on very severely. Mr. Tappan for a time was sick and I was closely confined to the office. The Secretary Mr. Van Wagenen was a good deal older than I and had been many years in the office and felt he ought to have been elected instead of me, and was very unhappy about it, and made it as hard for me as he could, and I had to look more after his work than I ought or should have had to do, if Mr. Tappan had been well.

The Ship John Baring of New York owned by Messrs. Goodhue was offered to me, as Master, and as I could not remain in the office I resigned and took charge of the Ship and went to New Orleans carrying a full cargo in the lower hold and 175 soldiers and officers for the Government. The winds favored us very much, and we landed the soldiers in ten days from New York. It was a very pleasant passage, the officers were all gentlemen and were satisfied with our endeavors to please and provide for them.

From New Orleans to Liverpool we went and from there to Visby in the Island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, and took on board the cargo of the wrecked Ship “Molo” and Capt. Windson [?] and carried both him and the cargo to Boston, and after all the cargo was delivered and the ship cleaned up, I left her in care of the consigner who was formerly a ship master. He would have given me charge of one of his ships but we had one ship building for me, the “Geneva,” 456 tons, by Mr. Joseph Coffin, and was to be owned by Uncle Eben Hale, Brothers Thomas and Josiah and myself.

She was launched I think in 1837 and was unfortunate in the launching and did not go off the first time —weather was so very cold, the tallow crumbled up on the ways. The next day they put some oil on the tallow, and she started before they expected and went across the river and stuck on the mud rocks, for a little while, and then as [the] tide rose floated off and was towed to town to be rigged and got ready for sea. Cold winter weather sometimes makes slow work in getting ready a new ship. So it was this year. We were not ready to sail until in February. And then your Uncle Eben (my brother) and John Sewall Tappan, a boy of 17, sailed with me for Savannah to load for Marseilles with cotton. We were chartered for the voyage before we sailed from there.

“A Certain Amount of Unpleasantness" ...a blog by Bethany Groff Dorau

This is how these things happen. I was looking up a whaling ship, I swear. And there, in the June 22, 1827 Newburyport Herald death notices, wedged in between several more pedestrian demises, was this chestnut.

What in the name of my giddy aunt is the HOT CROP SYSTEM? Whaling be damned. Off I go. I emerged, blinking into the sunlight several hours later, having thoroughly enjoyed a deep dive into Jacksonian populism, early self-help movements, and tales of energetic vomiting (key to the above system). Let me back up.

First, I needed more details on the demise of Samuel Hills, of a Newbury family but residing at the time of his death, in Surry, NH. The Boston Medical Intelligencer, ten days earlier, published additional detail. “The circumstances attending his death are painful in the extreme. In a word, he died a victim to the Thomsonian system of practice!” Okay – now I had a clue. Who was Thomson?

Samuel Thomson was born in 1769 in Alstead, New Hampshire, which he described as a “wilderness”. At a young age, he became interested in the plants that grew near his farm, and apprenticed, informally, with a local healer, a woman well versed in herbal remedies. His biggest discovery, however, was made by accident when he sampled some wild lobelia inflata, known as Indian tobacco, which caused sudden and enthusiastic vomiting. At first, he thought it would be fun to trick other children into sampling his discovery and enjoying an afternoon of thunderous chundering (there’s always that one kid…). Later, after he had miraculously cured an ankle injury, his wife’s childbed fever, and other illnesses with steam and the liberal application of herbs designed to open “pathways of elimination”, he began to practice his unorthodox methods in Surry, New Hampshire and the surrounding area. Things did not get off to a promising start, and in 1809, Thomson was accused of murder, when one of his patients, Ezra Lovett, died after ingesting quantities of lobelia. He was acquitted, and the notoriety of the case, and Thomson’s strident defense of his methods against the attacks of the medical establishment, made him a celebrity.

Thomson was a man with the right message at the right time. His system of healing, accessible to all, fit in perfectly with Jacksonian ideals of individuality and populism, and extolled the virtues of folk wisdom and intuition over formal education. Thomson attacked the medical establishment in populist terms. “From those who measure a man's understanding and ability to be beneficial to his fellow men only from the acquisition he has made in literature from books…I expect not encouragement but opposition.” He boasted that anyone could follow his methods “without knowing a single letter of the alphabet.”

And he understood that his business would depend on direct sales. Thomson would advertise a free public lecture when he arrived in town, give a rousing speech excoriating the poisonous methods employed by the medical establishment, demonstrate his process, which was all about eliminating toxins through steam, purgatives and laxatives, and then offer to sell the right to become a “Thomsonian” practitioner, for a cost. He encouraged the practitioners to network with each other, recruit new agents for the cause, and so on. As his popularity grew, so did opposition from the medical establishment. Newspapers were quick to publish allegations that Thomsonian practitioners were steaming and poisoning their patients to death, and physicians and medical schools took out advertisements in the Newburyport Herald calling on their patients to resist “quackery” and eschew the “puke of lobelia”. After all, they mused, Thomson’s herbal remedies had long advertised their explosive effects with names like “screw augur! ram-cat! hell-scraper! and belly-my-grizzle”.

The Shakers formulated herbal remedies based on Thomsonian principles and sold them widely (left). Thomsonian practitioners commonly used a steam bath as part of their treatments (right).

It was too late. After the publication, in 1822, of Thomson’s New Guide to Health, or Botanic Family Physician, Thomsonian establishments, known colloquially as agents of “family medicine”, in this case meaning it could be dispensed and applied at home, sprang up across the country. In Newburyport, in 1835, Dr. Dow announced that he had “taken that elegant and well-known place called Mount Rural, situated on High Street, Newburyport, and opened it as a Thomsonian Infirmary, for the sick and lame. This house is large and commodious, and for purity and salubrity of air, and beauty and extent of prospect of the surrounding country and coast, is not surpassed by any spot in New England.” He went on to reassure potential patients that “I here pledge on my honor that not one person ever died in my Infirmary,” despite the rumors. After a certain period of gut-wrenching unpleasantness, patients could expect his treatment to “penetrate the system, equalize excitement, remove obstructions, cleanse the stomach and bowels, purify the blood, remove disease from lungs and liver,” and eradicate a host of issues, from depression to infertility and cancer.

Thomson died in 1843, and though herbalism and so-called botanic cures continued to flourish, his particular methods and grassroots marketing structure began to fade. Herbalism became increasingly part of a professionalized school of practice.

When James and I were dating lo these many moons ago, I had the sniffles, and he told me that he would make me up an old family cure – whiskey, garlic, ginger, cayenne pepper, honey, lemon, and habanero sauce mixed with hot water. He made it. I, always a sucker for anything with a family story behind it (and a sucker for James himself, of course), struggled through it. After a certain amount of gasping and sweating, I questioned its origins. “Oh, I’m sure it’s SOMEONE’s old family cure, but certainly not mine,” he laughed, as my face went a blistering red. I was enraged. “Got rid of the sniffles though, didn’t it?” Fair enough. Reader, I married him. After all, it’s nice to have a (Thomsonian) doctor in the family.

Thursday, February 17, 2022, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM (Online). Register here.

Thursday, February 24, 2022, 7:00 PM (Online). Register here.

Join us to learn about the newly launched Newburyport Black History Initiative, a collaborative project that aims to highlight and incorporate Newburyport’s Black history more fully into the public landscape through historic interpretive signs, lectures, panel discussions and workshops, and other activities. Prof. Kabria Baumgartner, Cyd Raschke, and Geordie Vining will describe the project's mission and key goals, upcoming plans, and how community members can get involved.

Are you passionate about local history? And comfortable speaking to small groups? We are looking for additional docents to give tours at the museum once the doors open in May. We'll be meeting in late February and in the coming months. Please contact the office to find out more - call Kristen at 978-462-2681 or email kristen@newburyhistory.org.

6 T. butter

2 lbs. onion, thinly sliced

4 cloves garlic, chopped

2 1/2 lbs. pumpkin, diced

6 c. chicken or vegetable stock

1 lg. celery stalk, chopped

3T flour

Salt to taste

Melt 4 tablespoons butter in large saucepan. Saute onions and garlic until golden. Add pumpkin, stock, celery and salt. Bring to a boil , then simmer until pumpkin is well cooked and soft, about 30 minutes. Puree mixture in a processor until mixture is smooth. Return mixture to saucepan. Knead flour with 2 tablespoons butter and gradually add to mixture, beating with a whisk. Bring to a boil to thicken. Adjust seasonings and serve hot or cold. Serves 4-6. -Ruth Yesair

Recipe from: "Cushing House Cooks" –on sale for $20 - order here

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.