e-Newsletter | October 22, 2021 |
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Captain Edmund Bartlet: Seventh Generation of the Old Newbury Family
Over the decades, volumes have been written about the Bartlet family of Newburyport and their descendants. William Bartlet, merchant and ship owner, is perhaps the most well-known, remembered for his prosperity and generosity to his hometown. Affluent and influential, he made his mark on the city. Today, we take an intimate look at the family of his son, Edmund Bartlet who was the seventh generation of Bartlets in Old Newbury.
Captain Edmund Bartlet was born during the early months of the American Revolution. As a young man he took an interest in civic affairs and became involved in the improvement of the town's public space and common land, a portion of which 25 years previously had been set aside as a training field for the local militia who would fight in the War of Independence.
In 1800 Bartlet gave $1,400 to fill in an "unsightly gully" and subsequently created a promenade where the former ropewalk belonging to John Crocker had been built. For his efforts and generosity, the park was named Bartlet Mall.
In October 1801, Edmund Bartlet married Zilpha Holmes Gerrish of Newbury. A few months before he had purchased a home on Broad Street but by 1805 the Bartlet family had moved to 3 Market Street where they lived in an elegant three-story brick house built by William Bartlet for his son. This remained the family home for three generations.
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Home of Captain Edmund and Zilpha Gerrish Bartlet built in 1804. This fine Federal period home has a belt course between each story and shaped lintels over the windows. Photo: Architectural Heritage of the Merrimack, John Mead Howells. |
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Portrait of Captain Edmund Bartlet (1775-1854) attributed to Moses Dupre Cole (1783-1849). From the collections of the Museum of Old Newbury. |
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Bartlet was a shipmaster and merchant, and for many years, he was involved in the manufacture of yarn and cotton batting working from a building adjacent to his home at the corner of Market and Merrimac Streets.
Edmund and Zilpha had eight children, including one who died as an infant, between 1802 and 1816. All were daughters except the last, William, who was named for his grandfather.
In the museum's collections are two companion portraits of their first daughter, Betsey, born in 1802, and her sister, Lydia Coombs, born in 1808.
The sisters, in the blush of youth, are portrayed wearing tortoiseshell hair combs and blue dresses with flounced collars.
The portraits, gouache on paperboard, are attributed to artist Moses Dupre Cole who painted numerous portraits of Newburyport families. Both Betsey and Lydia died young at ages 19 and 27, respectively.
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Portrait of Betsey Bartlet (1802-1821) left, and portrait of Lydia Bartlet (1808-1837) right. Both portraits were painted cicra 1820 and remained in the household of Edmund Bartlet until he died in 1854. They then passed on to Betsey's and Lydia's sister, Catherine Maria Atkinson, who inherited the house from her father. Her daughter Martha is said to have remarked that her aunts "looked so much alike their own parents couldn't tell them apart." From the collections of the Museum of Old Newbury. |
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The museum owns several examples of needlework made by the Bartlet daughters including a silk-on-silk embroidery and a sampler worked by Betsey when she was seven years old -- a remarkable accomplishment for one so young.
The sampler, worked in veridian green and sienna threads, illustrates the typical alphabet and numerals with a phrase beneath "Virtue is the greatest /ornament / Betsey Bartlet / 1809."
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Needlework sampler of Betsey Bartlet donated by Miss Martha Atkinson. From the collections of the Museum of Old Newbury. |
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Edmund and Zilpha Bartlet are buried with most of their children in Highland Cemetery, their graves marked by a large tabletop stone.
The Bartlet women, mother and daughters, might have vanished altogether from the annals of Newburyport history had it not been for Martha Atkinson. She guarded their legacy and, in its early days, entrusted the portraits and needle work to the Museum of Old Newbury for future generations to learn and admire.
It is the role of these individuals that make local history so rich. To them, we are truly grateful.
Tomb of the Bartlet family in Highland Cemetery. Courtesy photo: Ghlee Woodworth.
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Woman on the MOON
The Haunted Door...a blog by Bethany Groff Dorau
Texts with my teenage daughter:
Meg: MOM, what was THAT?
Me: It was Alma. She is doomed to live in that dumpster of a room of yours for all eternity.
Meg: Nah, according to Grammy, she is “safely resting in Jesus’ arms.”
Me: Be vigilant! She’s under the bed! I love you.
Meg: Alma loves you too.
Me: Alma loves fire extinguishers. Too soon?
Meg: By several generations.
This exchange, like so many others between my daughter and me, is in extremely poor taste. Dark humor is our love language. I am also a fan of facing your fears, so when Meg was younger, and afraid that the creaking old Poore House was haunted, I made her a list of the people who had died in her room, and exactly how and when they expired. “Then you’ll know who you’re talking to,” I said, catapulting her directly into a lifetime of therapy.
I’ll tell you a secret. Someone died in your house if it was built more than a century ago. Probably many someones. The Museum of Old Newbury can help you figure out who they are, if you are interested, one of many services we offer to our esteemed members. It’s some deed research, a family tree, vital records, and voila. Because, really, there was nowhere else to die until fairly recently in this country.
Hospitals tended to be reserved for special cases and quarantine. In Boston in 1912, nearly 70% of people threw off this mortal coil at home. By the 1970’s, almost everyone expired in a hospital. We are coming down the other side of that wave, thankfully. I intend to die in my bed and spend eternity playing pranks on my descendants.
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Alma Hall Poore, 1790-1866 (courtesy image). |
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But poor Alma. Has anyone ever told you that more women died when their clothing caught fire than in childbirth? Something about hoop skirts and fireplace cooking. This one, endlessly repeated, is as complicated as “people were shorter back then.”
In both cases, there is some truth to the statement – studies have found that height correlates roughly with nutrition and population density, so people were about as tall as we are today when they had enough food and space.
As for flammable females? Yep, it happened, but it was unusual, enough so that it was newsworthy, which made it look like it was happening all the time, and around we go.
So, when I heard my family story about my great-great-great-grandmother Alma Hall Poore catching fire in the upstairs bedroom, I did not take it very seriously.
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We moved back into the Poore House in West Newbury in 2017, two centuries after Alma and her husband, Ebenezer, built the first section of the house, later enlarged by their son Moses in 1856. It never left the family, and since I had the benefit of decades with my older relatives, I put certain stories about my family in a special category, treating them like charming folk tales.
Some of these stories are downright Dickensian – my great-great grandfather interviewing young West Newbury schoolmasters by making them beat him in a fistfight or my great-great aunt, who, as a 4-year-old, was loaned to a wealthy New York family as a companion for their daughter and then unceremoniously returned because she wouldn’t stop crying. Unverifiable, a little humorous, certainly not filled with empathy for what must have been traumatic and frightening events for the people involved.
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Alma became a featured character in our lives when Meg moved into the southeast chamber, which had been my bedroom, and before that, my mom’s bedroom, and strange things began to happen.
In particular, the door, secured with an old thumb-latch, would open on its own. The latch, secured deep in a groove in its mortise catch, would pop up inexplicably, and the door creak open, sometimes while Meg was in the room.
This happened on windy days, on days with no wind at all, in all seasons, and at all times of day. Sometimes it would remain closed for weeks and then pop open.
And so, though I remain convinced that there is some reasonable explanation for this, I suggested to Meg, in a moment of teasing, that maybe Alma wanted the door ajar.
The story stuck, and we began to address her in the upstairs hall, apologizing for a belch or a swear or blaming her when something was left in an odd place.
And then, I mentioned Alma to friend and fellow history nerd, Dan Santos, who asked if I had ever checked the newspaper to see if the story was true, and everything changed.
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Meg Groff, Alma's great-great-great-great granddaughter (and roommate). |
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You see, Meg’s room was once called the parlor chamber, and on October 9, 1866, 75-year-old Alma Hall Poore, born in 1790, carried twigs up the stairs in her apron, tossed them into the wood stove, and caught fire. It really happened. The details described in the newspaper are heartbreaking.
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Moses, named as M. Hall Poor, was her oldest son, just fifteen when his father Ebenezer died, leaving Alma a widow with five children to raise.
I am haunted (there, I said it) by the image of him running in from the barn to find his mother on the landing engulfed in flames and trying and failing to save her life, “badly burning both hands in doing so.”
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Moses Poore, 1822-1901 (courtesy image). |
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How do we live with this heaviness, this inheritance of suffering? For Meg and me, even knowing the truth of this terrible story, we honor Alma by keeping her around, by making her part of our family’s teasing banter.
And I think of her every October when I think about lighting my own fireplace on a crisp fall day. I think of the lines on her weathered face, her dark hair and serious brow. I think of her short stint as a teacher at West Newbury’s Number 6 School, so beloved by her students that they visited her at her (my) house fifty years later.
And how do I know exactly who died in Meg’s room? Because when it was my room, my great-aunt Emily told me, and her father told her, when it was her room. Because death, like life, is part of every family.
Just leave the door open.
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West Newbury death record for Alma Hall Poore. |
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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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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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Columbus Day’s Origins in the Crescent City: Re-evaluating the Current Controversy
Virtual Event
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For 50 years, Columbus Day has been a national holiday, more or less celebrating Christopher Columbus's "discovery" of the New World. Since then, more and more Americans are choosing, instead, to observe the holiday as Indigenous People's Day, acknowledging the native peoples whom Europeans displaced and critiquing their treatment by colonizers and by citizens and governments in the United States.
Those clashing historical narratives speak of deep division among Americans today. Some resolution to the controversy over Columbus Day, at least, might be found in the origin of that holiday long before 1971, but nearly 130 years ago in New Orleans.
Olivia Crisafi, '22, is a senior at The Governor's Academy from Newbury, MA. Drawn to controversial issues, she is passionate about public policy and engineering and spends her free time running, building robots and fundraising for her chosen social causes. Her investigation of Columbus Day, for her junior-year AP US History class, sparked her interest in historical research, which she pursued as an intern at the MOON this past summer, and plans to continue in college.
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Puzzle Me This...
This Masonic Apron of American beauty colored velvet with rose fabric trim, belonged to Caleb Cushing (1800-1879).
Cushing was initiated into St. John's Lodge of Newburyport in 1825. He also signed the Boston Declaration of 1831 along with many Freemasons of Massachusetts in response to the anti-masonic fervor growing around the country at the time.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Albert D. Allard.
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
The perfect meal for a special occasion, this tenderloin recipe from Courtney Tsiaras is as easy as it is decadent.
Cognac Mustard Beef Tenderloin
2 to 2 1/2 pounds beef tenderloin
4 garlic cloves, sliced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup butter
4 medium shallots, minced
1 can beef broth
2 tablespoons cognac
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons minced parsley
Salt & pepper to taste
Cut slits into beef and insert garlic slices. Heat oil in skillet and fry meat on all sides. While meat is roasting at 350ºF to desired preference, melt butter in pan drippings. Sauté shallots until translucent. Add stock and reduce by half. Add cognac, mustard and parsley. Salt and pepper to taste. Keep sauce warm until meat is cooked. Slice meat and pour a little of the sauce over it. Serve remaining sauce to one side. Serves 4-6
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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 of Old Newbury
98 High Street
Newburyport, MA 01950
978-462-2681
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