e-Newsletter | July 30, 2021 |
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Abigail Chase Stone Ceremony & Unveiling
Changed to Friday, August 6, 2021
The long awaited celebration of the return of young Abigail Chase's headstone to her family's plot has been changed to Friday, August 6, 2021 @ 1:00 p.m.
Abigail, the youngest of the Moses and Elizabeth Chase's nine children died from distemper on May 15, 1736. She was 17 months old. Three days later on May 18, Abigail's sister, five-year-old Rebekah, succumbed. Finally, on May 27, their sister Anne, aged eight, died of the disease.
It is not certain exactly when the stone went missing, but thanks to the Ron Pook of Pook & Pook Auctioneers stalwart belief that the sale of gravestones "just isn't right," Abigail will now once again rest in peace with her family at the Bridge Street Cemetery.
Learn more here or plan to listen next week on WBUR's (90.9 FM) "All Things Considered," when moderator Lisa Mullins further explores Abigail's long journey home.
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Newburyport: The Smallest Little City
with the Biggest Global Impact
By Jack Santos
We love our Old Newbury History. We have plenty of historical backdrop that entices us all to learn more and take advantage of the collections at the Museum of old Newbury, The Custom House Maritime Museum and the Newburyport Library archival center.
Whether it’s a walk across the Artichoke bridge, the chain bridge and its arches, through downtown West Newbury to discover the remnants of its industrial past, the lower and upper Newbury greens to relive the settling of Newbury and Benedict Arnold’s encampment, or downtown Newburyport to experience the brick architecture that rose from the fire of 1811 – there is a lot here to explore.
But our appreciation for, and quest of, history doesn’t need to stop at local sites. Long before the bestselling book “The World is Flat” (by Thomas Friedman) – Newburyport discovered how commerce and communications results in a “flattened” world. We did that through the travels of the ships we built and sent out, and the captains and crew that manned them. Newburyport valued international trade and global markets – two centuries before planes, container ships and GPSs. The lives that Newburyport sailors lived, and the stories they brought back, continues to affect us daily.
As an example, take the recent Newburyport News Op-ed article by Jack Garvey. In it he describes how Newburyport captain Charles Brown made a Pittsburgh connection that affected out streetscape. It was Brown that brought The Pittsburg Plate Glass (PPG) company’s glass tile innovation to the attention of Newburyporters and established our distinct look that remains today – like at 17 State Street (Brine Restaurant) and on the (soon to be prior) Grand Trunk store location at 53 Pleasant Street.
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Vintage Vitrolite advertisement, illustrating PPG's innovative glass tile design (image courtesy of decopix.com). Couch Park, Portland, OR (image courtesy of Jack Santos). |
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Then there is the little-known fact that John Couch (another Newburyport captain) through his voyages to the northwest coast, decided to stay there. He helped establish Portland Oregon – today he is regarded as one of the city’s founders, and Portland commemorates him with “Couch Park” in the center of the city. He was financed and sent on his Northwest voyages by John Newmarch Cushing – who lived in what today is the Museum of Old Newbury.
It was Captain Cushing that sent Couch on the ship Maryland in 1840 to the Columbia River for a cargo of salmon. This was a time when that corner of our country was still in dispute with Great Britain…so any settlers (like Couch) were really establishing a beachhead for the US claim – and our sense of manifest destiny.
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Portrait of William Wheelwright that hangs (next to his wife) in the Museum of Old Newbury's Fruit Street stair landing (from the collections of the Museum of Old Newbury). William Wheelwright statue, Valparaiso, Chile (image courtesy of Jack Santos). |
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Newburyport’s influence extends even as far south as South America. In Valparaiso, Chile, there is a statue dedicated to William Wheelwright.
For many years, William and his wife Martha’s High Street home was the location of the “Society for the Relief of Aged Females” (today it is a private home). Today that society lives on as the “Society for the Relief of Aged Women” and still gives grants to those in need. William is celebrated in Chile as a leading industrialist. He developed their rail and shipping lines during the 19th century – while still maintaining his home here in Newburyport.
So, our local history is not just “local” – it is worldwide. And wherever you go, whatever you visit, you are likely to find that Newburyport connection in a broad, flat, world. The smallest little city with the biggest global impact.
Jack will be giving a talk during Yankee Homecoming as part of the “Heritage Tours” lecture series at the Newburyport Public Library. Join him Wednesday, August 4, 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., as he discusses “A Newburyport Travelogue” our city's influence on the world.
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Woman on the MOON
Profane and Foolish Singing, Probably Being Drunk...a blog by Bethany Groff Dorau
A tall man with a long salt and pepper beard takes a slug of ale, throws back his head, and belts out one low note, holding it until the other two dozen people around the table find the same note. Once the magical musical consensus is reached, the original singer stomps his boot, and begins to sing
“Oh, the smartest clipper you can find…”
The semi-circle of men and women answer his line with a teasing rejoinder.
“Ho-way, ho, are you 'most done?”
“Is the Margaret Evans of the Blue Star Line…”
Response: “Clear away the track and let the bullgine run.”
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The Portermen, Newburyport’s purveyors of “Sea Shanties & Traditional Songs,” lead the gathering on Wednesday night at the Port Tavern for the first time in well over a year.
Before the pandemic, the nine members of the group gathered on the fourth Wednesday of every month to lead an open singing session, a traditional, loose gathering where patrons lead songs likely to be known by heart amongst the assembly. If all goes well, the singer gets a beer. If it goes badly, the singer likely gets a couple of beers. It is an encouragement to be brave.
Since the first European settlers arrived on the banks of the Parker River, Newbury men and women have been singing together. The idea of the kill-joy Puritans moseying about in silence is largely a nineteenth century notion bolstered by occasional references to singing in court cases.
The people here built a tavern within the first four months of settlement and sang their hearts out there and in the meeting house.
Certainly, the singing of the psalms in a 17th century meetinghouse was not the rowdy, tipsy experience of singing in a tavern, but they are strikingly similar. The Bay Psalm Book, first published in 1640, translated the traditional Bible verses into metered rhyme, easy to sing.
For example, Psalm 23, verse 6 in the King James Bible, “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” becomes this:
Goodness and mercy surely shall
All my days follow me
And in the Lord’s house I shall dwell
For long as days shall be.
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The cover of a psalm book and a sample of metered rhyme. (Images courtesy of the Library of Congress.) |
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The psalm books that were passed down from generation to generation had no music. They relied on a leader, sometimes the minister but more often a talented layman, to "set" the psalm, choosing a tune from a selection of traditional melodies that the congregation would know by heart, and then leading the singing, using a chopping motion of the arm to keep the unruly crowd on task. The leader was, essentially, a spiritual shantyman.
It all went horribly wrong more often than not.
Newbury’s own Samuel Sewell, a diarist and judge living in Boston, led the singing in the South Church, and recorded some of his difficulties in his diary. The tunes which are named here often went awry, or the crowd misunderstood his efforts, or simply over-rode his choice of tune by singing him down. It was, as historian Laura L. Becker put it, “an individualistic, improvised and ever-changing oral tradition.”
"Dec. 28, 1705 – (The minister) spake to me to set the Tune; I intended Windsor, and fell into High-Dutch, and then essaying to set another Tune, went into a Key much too high.”
"July 5, 1713 - I try'd to set Low-Dutch Tune and fail'd. Try'd again and fell into the tune of 119th Psalm."
"Feb. 2, 1718 - In the Morning I set York Tune, and in the 2d going over, the Gallery carried it irresistibly to St. David's, which discouraged me very much.”
By 1718, Sewell, who was a great lover of music, resigned his post in frustration, and when he was forbidden to step down, simply refused to lead the psalm.
"Feb. 23, 1718 - I set York Tune, and the Congregation went out of it into St. David's in the very 2d going over. They did the same 3 weeks before. This is the 2d Sign. I think they began in the last line of the first going over. This seems to me an intimation and call for me to resign the Praecentor's Place to a better voice…Mr. Prince said, Do it Six years longer. I persisted and said that Mr. White or Franklin might do it very well."
"Mar. 2, 1718 - I told Mr. White the elders desired him, he must Set the Tune; he disabled himself, as if he had a Cold. But when the Psalm was appointed, I forbore to do it…”
Outside of the meeting house, the presence of singing in the court record reveals not that it was forbidden but that it was exceedingly common in homes and in taverns as well.
The few times it appears in a criminal complaint, it is almost always cited as addition proof of drunkenness, as in the case of Thomas Wheeler, then of Lynn, who was fined in June 1653, for “profane and foolish dancing, singing and wanton speeches, probably being drunk.” To be clear, the crime here not the singing, or even the dancing, but the drunkenness.
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I joined the Portermen late last night after returning from another meeting, and after a pint of Ipswich Ale’s finest, and with the help of my friend Jay, I did a turn as shantyman with an embarrassingly rusty version of “Northwest Passage.”
And there, surrounded by my friends, lifting our voices together, I felt the power of this primal experience, shared in this town for four centuries.
I am sure Samuel Sewell would have upended the table and stormed out, but I earned my free beer.
(Listen to "Eliza Lee" from The Porterman album by clicking on the image.)
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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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"Passing the Baton" with host, Mary Jacobson, and special guests, Susan Edwards and Bethany Groff Dorau from the Museum of Old Newbury.
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Susan Edwards and Bethany Groff Dorau joined Mary Jacobson on July 29's "Morning Show" to discuss passing the baton at the Museum of Old Newbury.
"Morning Show" host Mary Jacobson welcomed outgoing and incoming Executive Directors, Susan Edwards and Bethany Groff Dorau, respectively, of Newburyport's cherished institution, the Museum of Old Newbury.
With nearly 50 years in the museum profession -- including seven as Executive Director at the Museum, Susan spoke about the highlights of her tenure at the Museum, and how she worked to “bring the collections to life.” She also shared the extraordinary journey (as recently reported in the "Daily News") of the "Abigail stone" back to its final resting place.
Bethany, an accomplished author and historian who previously spent 21 years as a regional administrator for Historic New England -- including managing another cherished Newburyport institution, the Spencer-Peirce-Little house and its assorted and beloved four-legged farm animals -- spoke of her vision for the Museum’s future.
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Martin Johnson Heade and the New England Landscape
Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904) was a prolific painter of landscapes, still life and exotic portraits of tropical birds and flowers. Perhaps most iconic, are his salt marsh paintings of New England centered around Newbury's Great Marsh.
Colleene Fesko, an appraiser on the hit PBS television series Antiques Roadshow since its inception 25 years ago, will explore Heade's work beyond his associations with the Hudson River School of artists and discuss him as a Luminist painter, placing his salt marsh paintings and seascapes in the context of his own oeuvre and that of his contemporaries.
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2021 Garden Tour Gallery – Part 6
Some of the fabulous images sent in by attendees of this year's 42nd Annual Garden Tour. Many more to come! Do you have a few? Send along (with your name and the town you live in) and you could be eligible for free Garden Tour tickets next year.
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Puzzle Me This...
James Prince, Jr. (1781-1802)
Oil on canvas, painted by John Brewster, Jr. (1766-1854)
1801
John Brewster, Jr. was a deaf portrait painter who worked in several of New England's prosperous coastal communities.
He would often advertise in local newspapers that he was in town and available to paint portraits of prominent citizens. He was in Newburyport for three months in 1801 staying at the Prince home.
The museum is fortunate to own three full-size portraits of the Prince family.
In addition to this portrait, Brewster painted a double portrait of merchant James Prince and his son, William Henry, a portrait of William Henry, and a fourth of Sarah Prince, the last is in the collection of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum at Colonial Williamsburg.
The portraits depict the elegant interiors and gardens of the Prince family home, now the Newburyport Public Library.
Click on image to begin.
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Something is Always Cooking at the Museum
Add a dollop of butter with a little homemade jam and Dr. George S. Wild has just the "cure" for a lazy summer Sunday nosh.
English Muffin Bread
6 cups flour
2 packages dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/4 cups milk
Mix 3 cups flour, yeast, sugar, salt and soda. Heat milk to 125ºF and add to flour. Beat with electric mixer for 2 to 3 minutes. Add remaining flour and mix. Spoon into 2 greased 8 1/4" x 4 1/2" bread pans. Cover tops with cornmeal. Let rise 45 minutes and bake in preheated 400ºF oven for 25 minutes. Turn out of pan and cool.
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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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