Getting to Know the John White Winder Collection

by Bethany Groff Dorau, Museum of Old Newbury

John White Winder (r) with his brother-in-law Lucius Hallock Greely (l), nephew of Arctic explorer Adolphus Greely.

On a steaming hot day last week, librarians and archivists from The Governor's Academy in Byfield and staff from the Museum of Old Newbury loaded precious cargo into a fleet of vans. 60 archival boxes of material, 40 of them holding delicate glass negatives, most of them from 1889 - 1903, had been transferred to the Museum of Old Newbury. The John White Winder Collection joins our remarkable collection of nearly 20,000 historic images, one of the most comprehensive visual records of any one place over time, and adds exponentially to it.

Part of the John White Winder Collection on route to its new home at the Museum of Old Newbury.

John White Winder was born in Newbury, likely at his family's farm at the corner of Ocean Ave, on August 29, 1850. His birth is recorded as simply ___Winder by town clerk and historian Joshua Coffin. In 1888, at the relatively advanced (for the time) age of 38, Winder married Clarissa Jewett Greely Winder, niece of famed explorer Adolphus Greely. (read more about him here). She was 37. Winder was an insurance actuary who worked at New England Mutual Life Insurance Company. He seems to have taken up photography as a hobby, but his meticulous notes and experimentation with light and composition reveal a passion that surpassed a casual interest.



The Winder/Greely families were large and intertwined, and many of Winder's favorite subjects are members of this extended clan, especially children. Family homes also featured prominently, but none more than the Winder farm on the corner of Ocean Ave.

The Winder family farm appears in every season and from every angle in the Winder Collection. These images were taken in 1892 (top), 1889 and 1891 (middle). The current view is from Google Maps.

The Winders married late and did not have children, but family relationships are central to this collection.

Winder photographed the weathered face of his father, former mariner Nathaniel Reed Winder, and then, after his death in March, 1891, his empty chair.

John and Clarissa Greely Winder's nieces and nephews from both sides of the family were also favorite subjects.  

Top: Clarissa Greely Winder's niece and John Winder's nephew Thetis Questrom (b. 1884) and Fairfield Winder (b. 1885), play on Plum Island in 1893.

Bottom: Winder's portrait of Thetis is from 1895, while Fairfield was photographed in 1890.

The Winder Collection documents the childhood of his nephew Fairfield, from a boy of 4 to a young man of 13.

Likewise, Thetis Questrom, daughter of Clarissa Greely Winder's sister, Delphine, was photographed in 1890, 1894 (the year her mother died), and as a 19-year-old in 1903.

The John White Winder Collection speaks to a man who found beauty and interest in every aspect of his life and the world around him. It is a remarkable record of life in the Newburys and beyond around the turn of the last century.

Top to bottom: Children play in a dory near Winder's Farm in 1892, Beachgoers near the Schooner Abbie and Eva Hooper, washed ashore on Plum Island in 1895, Deer Island Bridge and a summer house made of sticks, 1890, Children in the surf at Plum Island in 1897, Room 52 of the New England Mutual Life Building Boston, 1898.

We are just beginning to explore the riches of the John White Winder Collection. In addition to family members, Winder photographed neighbors, pets, farms, and buildings. He documented everyday life in his hometown, a place intimately tied to the sea, but also took his camera into the wild and on vacation, photographing New Hampshire, Washington D.C. and Niagara Falls.

We are excited to share more of this collection with you as we get to know it better. With nearly 1100 images and hundreds of documents, there is an embarrassment of riches to share. We are grateful to The Governor's Academy for trusting us with this treasure.



Note: Images from the John White Winder collection will be available to view at New Acquisitions for Old Newbury: Member Reception and Annual Meeting on September 13 at 6:30 p.m. See below for details.

Upcoming Events

New Acquisitions for Old Newbury: 2023 Member Reception and Annual Meeting

Wednesday, September 13, 6:30-8pm, free.

Join us for an exciting evening at the New Acquisitions for Old Newbury event! This is your chance to connect with fellow members and celebrate our organization's achievements over the past year.

Following a reception and brief business meeting, you will have the opportunity to view highlights of the past year's acquisitions. Enjoy images of Newburyport and New England from two ground-breaking amateur photographers from the turn of the last century, John White Winder and George Varney, and a recently digitized collection of slides documenting Newburyport during and after urban renewal. Check out 20th century design artifacts from Towle Silver Company, breath-taking ephemera from two doomed Newburyport captains, and items from the Pearson collection, spanning two centuries of intimate family history in Newburyport and Byfield.

From Port to Port - a Portsmouth Summer Sojourn

Thursday, August 17, 9am - 3:30 pm. SOLD OUT

Join the Museum of Old Newbury for a day-long exploration of the artistic, familial, and maritime links between Newburyport and Portsmouth. Stops will include the Cushing House, a rare, behind-the-scenes visit to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard cemetery and museum, and private tours of the Portsmouth Atheneum, and the 1763 Moffatt-Ladd House & Garden. $50 per person, Museum of Old Newbury members only. Limit two tickets per member.

History and Cultures of the Great Marsh

Monday, October 23, 2023, 8:30 am - 4:30 pm

The Governor's Academy

Join us for the History & Cultures of the Great Marsh Conference on Monday, October 23, 2023 at The Governor's Academy. This is an in-person event with limited capacity - get your tickets soon! Museum of Old Newbury members and members of Essex County Greenbelt: $30, General Admission, $45. Add-on field trips an additional $10-15.

At this day-long conference, you'll have the opportunity to learn about the rich heritage and diverse cultures of Essex County's Great Marsh. Our expert speakers will cover topics ranging from the indigenous peoples who lived in the area, the impact of European settlement on the development of the Great Marsh, the art that this beautiful place inspired, and the challenges facing the region's most captivating natural landscape today. 

Topics and speakers include:

Christoph Strobel, Ph.D., "The Great Marsh, Newbury, and the Indigenous Worlds of the Merrimack River Valley System and Beyond."

Gordon Harris, historian, "Contention in the Commons: The Open Field Land System in 17th Century Newbury"

Tricia Peone, Ph.D., "Slavery and Memory in the Great Marsh"

Monica Reuss, American fine art specialist, "Splendour in the Grass: Art Inspired by the Great Marsh"

Panel: "Agriculture, Fishing, Hunting, & Conservation in the Great Marsh"

• Rich Clyborne, Executive Director of The Gundalow Company
• Russell Hopping, Ecology Program Director, Trustees of Reservations
• Geoffrey Walker, sportsman & wildlife activist, Great Marsh Partnership

Closing remarks: Peter Phippen, Merrimack Valley Planning Commission, Great Marsh Partnership

Optional field trips include:

1. Bird watching with Laura Vehring in the Parker River marsh surrounding The Governor’s Academy
2. Guided tour of Plum Island’s cranberry bogs
3. Guided tour of the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm & its salt marsh hay production, past & present.

Woman on the MOON

...a blog by Bethany Groff Dorau, Executive Director

Newburyport's Albert Pike Toppled, Part Three

To read previous articles about Albert Pike, click here and here. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking downtown when an old acquaintance fell into step with me. We walked along together, chatting about this and that. She asked me what I was working on, and that, gentle readers, is often a mistake unless you want a ten-minute explosion of information about whatever long-gone Newburyporter I’m obsessed with at the moment. Generally, there is a pause and a smile, and my listener says something like, “well, you clearly love your work”. This time, I went into a tear about Albert Pike, stopping only when my companion’s eyes began to widen, and she looked visibly worried. I paused. “Well, that’s not very nice, is it,” she said, and turned a corner. 

Friends, Albert Pike is not very nice. In fact, one of my first interactions with him was this quote from a letter published in 1875, when he was the Grand Commander of the Supreme Council A.A.S.R (Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite) Southern Jurisdiction (Freemasons). 



“I took my obligations to white men, not to Negroes. When I have to accept Negroes as brothers or leave Masonry, I shall leave it…I am interested to keep the Ancient and Accepted Rite uncontaminated, in our country at least, by the leprosy of Negro association.”

Albert Pike in Masonic regalia, c. 1880, private collection.

Albert Pike, the only Confederate general whose statue stood in Washington D.C., was so honored because of his Masonic leadership, though his racist views clearly extended to Masonic governance. At least, this leadership was the argument made when the Masons began planning his monument shortly after Pike’s death in 1891. And he was a very important leader – the highest-ranking Mason in the world at the time of his death.  

Lest one argue that it is unfair to judge a man of the past by today’s standards, let me assure you that this memorial to a deeply racist man accused of war atrocities, treason, and a host of other crimes was objectionable from the outset. As the sculptor, Gaetano Trentanove, worked on the statue, Pike supporters looked for sympathetic Congressmen to offer public land on which it would be placed. Numerous branches of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a fraternal organization of Union veterans, petitioned Congress to reject the statue, submitting their case in the most strident terms. As one Connecticut GAR leader wrote:

“We desire to express our solemn and unqualified disapproval of said bill as pregnant with evil for the future welfare of our beloved country, and dangerous in its tendencies as a gross perversion of history (when northern statesman advocating its passage, eulogize said Pike as “a distinguished citizen and a brave soldier” instead of a traitor to his country and a convicted coward in battle). Further, we consider the bill an insult to the memory, not alone of those brave boys in blue who at Pea Ridge were murdered and mutilated by his orders but equally so to every patriot who gave his life for liberty and a source of deep and lasting regret and humiliation to every loyal citizen.” 

Newburyport's GAR Post 49 does not seem to have formally protested the installation of the memorial statue of Albert Pike, though chapters across the country testified against it.

Despite these objections, public lands were given for the memorial on April 9, 1898 with the agreement that Albert Pike would be portrayed as a citizen and not a soldier. The reconstruction of Albert Pike’s legacy had begun. Or, rather, it was enshrined in 11 feet of bronze on our national land. In his 1901 acceptance speech on behalf of the American people, President of the District Commission H. B. F. McFarland praised Pike as a “victor in the honorable rivalries of peace”. In fact, so thoroughly had Pike’s legacy been twisted to suit the times, McFarland set him up as a noble foil to the war memorials throughout the city. “It is well that you thus add to the comparatively small number of statues in the city of Washington that honor the victories of peace rather than of war.”

Back home in Newburyport and Byfield, as the years rolled by, Albert Pike became a bit of a local hero, his Confederate past described as unfortunate at worst, heroic at best. In 1943, George W. Adams, then the oldest living alumnus of Governor Dummer Academy, swelled with pride when he wrote of Pike, “perhaps the most distinguished and honored son of this (Byfield) parish…” As for his Confederate service, Adams wrote that he “naturally and properly went with his state”. And his firmly entrenched, well-documented support of slavery? Adams claims a reluctance that Pike's own words prove false. “Never a lover of slavery, his attitude was that of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln whose hand was forced by the fanatical abolitionists.” The enslaved people themselves, including those who fled from his service? “Pike’s own slaves were a few domestic servants who at the close of the war refused to leave him and whose support was a burden.”  

A 1957 Daily News article was even more effusive. “He had an unbounded physical energy, an avid mind, marked independence and a great determination, all of which he may have inherited from that old major Robert Pike of Salisbury, one of his early ancestors.” The piece ends with this apology. “It is felt by many that Gen. Pike was illegally imposed upon, and he did not deserve much of the opprobrium that was cast upon him. There is nothing to show that his conduct was other than honorable at all times.”

The Albert Pike Memorial at the corner of Indiana Avenue and 3rd St.NW, a decade after its installation in 1901. Library of Congress

Albert Pike, at least the bronze effigy of him, was not destined to rest in peace, however. In 1992, amid weekly protests, Washington D.C. Councilmember Bill Lightfoot introduced legislation to remove the statue, though according to Lightfoot, his efforts “kind of faded away”. D.C. had more pressing issues to attend to at the time. One protest saw Pike in the mask and robe of a Ku Klux Klan member. A Washington Post editorial reprinted his poem Death Brigade, long seen as a love-letter to the secret violence of the Klan, and this straightforward characterization. “Pike was not just another soldier poet. He was a supreme grand commander, chief justice and cofounder of the KKK, according to published histories of the Klan." Though Pike’s leadership in the Klan is disputed, the Post left no doubt as to his statue’s inappropriateness in a place called Judiciary Square, quoting Pike, “with negroes for witnesses and jurors, the administration of justice becomes a blasphemous mockery…"

A protest gathered at the memorial in August, 2017 in the wake of violence in Charlottesville. Photo credit Ted Eytan, DCIst.

As the far right became more visible following the 2016 election, there were protests and counter-protests at the feet of Albert Pike. The mayor and the majority of City Councilors called for its removal. The Freemasons, besieged, offered that they would not oppose the removal of the statue to private property. The Ward 2 Councilor hired a crane, but the statue could not come down without Congressional approval. In 2017 and 2019, Washington D.C.’s Congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced bills to that end, but no action was taken. 

And then, on Juneteenth, 2020, armed with ropes and chains, protesters were done waiting and pulled down Albert Pike themselves.

The toppling of Albert Pike, June 19, 2020. Courtesy images.

Washington D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who fought for years to remove the Pike statue, has the last word before we pull the curtain on Albert Pike...for now.



"Adding to the dishonor of taking up arms against the United States, Pike dishonored even his Confederate military service. He certainly has no claim to be memorialized in the nation's capital. Even those who do not want Confederate statues removed would have to justify awarding Pike any honor, considering his history.." 

Chicken With Cilantro And Indian Spices

This week's recipe was selected from the Newbury Town Day Cookbook by docent Mary K, who thought it sounded like a perfect summer dish!

1 ½ lbs. boneless chicken breasts

1 tsp. salt (or to taste)

2-3 garlic cloves, peeled & coarsely chopped

2 tbsp. cooking oil

1 ½ tsp. ground coriander

¼ tsp. ground turmeric

¼ - ½ tsp. chili powder

1 ½ tbsp. lemon juice

2 tbsp. finely-chopped cilantro

Cut chicken into 1” cubes. Mash salt and garlic cloves into a smooth pulp using a mortar and pestle or fork. Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium. Add garlic mixture and sauté for about 30 seconds. Add chicken and cook for about 6-7 minutes, stirring constantly, to allow the spice flavors to “bloom.” Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice and sprinkle with cilantro. 

Note: Fresh herbs are always a summer treat here in Newbury. I suggest serving this dish with boiled or steamed rice. Enjoy!  - Joy Michaud 

Click the image to do the puzzle

Albert J. Bateman filed for a business certificate in July, 1949 to run Al's Taxi. Al's stayed in business until at least 1963 before being sold. This matchbook (see front and back above) looks to be from the 1950s and is part of a collection of ephemera recently donated to the museum.