The Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

Dr. Isaac Calcott arrived in Providence, Rhode Island in June of 1769. Well-dressed and in his thirties, Dr. Calcott claimed he could treat nearly thirty separate disorders, including "scale heads, St. Anthony's fire, vapors, King's evil, and deafness."

I don't know what most of those ailments are, but apparently they were quite Common in Colonial New England, because Dr. Calcott traveled through the region for the next four years, advertising his "Art of Curing" in all the local newspapers.

Although there were plenty of local physicians in the area in the 1700s, Dr. Calcott was part of a wave of itinerant doctors and healers who appeared in New England at this time. Most were men and came from Europe, although one Native American woman traveled through Essex County claiming to cure cancer through herbal treatments. Like Dr. Calcott, most also advertised through newspaper ads, but some relied just on local word of mouth.

These traveling healers were denounced by the more established doctors and often advocated highly unorthodox treatments. In addition to herbal treatments and elixirs, electrical devices were frequently used, often in front of a paying audience. These electrical demonstrations were part medicine and part entertainment.

Dr. Calcott didn't perform in front of an audience, but he did use a particularly strange technique. Here is an account of how he cured six year old Elizur Belden of blindness:

"Mrs. Belden holding the Child in his Lap, Dr. Calcott ... Licked the eyes, first putting his Tongue into one Eye and then into the other Eye of the Child - it was soon done, - and instantly the Child saw, and ever after continued to see well."

That account was written by Ezra Stiles, the President of Yale, after talking with Elizur Belden's parents many years after the cure. The testimony is reliable. The licking seemed to be effective, but why?

The modern scientific mindset would probably chalk it all up to psychosomatic illness, but Isaac Calcott claimed he had special healing powers because he was the seventh son of a seventh son. In many parts of Europe it was (and still is) believed that the seventh son of a seventh son has special abilities. Often these were healing powers, but in some places seventh sons could also predict the future and find lost objects. Wikipedia has a short but interesting article on this belief. In contemporary America, the seventh son motif is still popular in genre fiction.

The licking was also probably considered effective because spit was known to be a fluid highly charged with personal power. The average person's spit was often used in simple folk magic, but as the seventh son of a seventh son Dr. Calcott's saliva was obviously quite powerful. Jesus spit in a blind man's ear to make him hear; Dr. Calcott licked a blind boy's eyes to make him see.

Unfortunately the old adage "Physician, heal thyself" seems to apply to Dr. Calcott. Despite, or perhaps because of, his amazing powers Calcott was an alcoholic. Once, in Middletown, Connecticut, the good doctor was so drunk that two young boys were able to tar and feather him. He was last seen practicing his medical magic in 1773 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire before disappearing from the historical record.

I found this information in Peter Benes's article "Itinerant Physicians, Healers, and Surgeon-Dentists" in Medicine and Healing. Volume 15 of the Proceedings of the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife.

Satan, the Pope and a Cross Dresser: Guy Fawkes Day

This week I have the post Halloween blues, so I'm writing about another raucous holiday. Halloween wasn't really celebrated in New England until the 19th century, when Irish and Scottish immigrants brought it to this area. However, before that people here did have a holiday with costumes, door-to-door begging, and even jack-o-lanterns: Guy Fawkes Day.

Guy Fawkes was an English Catholic who plotted to blow up the predominantly Protestant British parliament on November 5, 1605. Unfortunately for him, he was seen leaving the basement of the Parliament building, and officials soon discovered the gunpowder kegs he hoped to ignite. He and his co-conspirators were executed. November 5 became a holiday in England known as Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Night - it celebrated the foiling of the gunpowder plot.

Guy Fawkes Day didn't become popular in New England until the late 1600s. As I've mentioned many times, the area's Puritan leaders frowned on nearly all holidays, but surprisingly tolerated this one. I think its anti-Catholic tone supported their own theocratic agenda.

To celebrate gangs of boys and men would create one or more effigies, usually of Guy Fawkes, the Pope, and sometimes Satan. Once night fell they'd get drunk, put on costumes and parade around town with their effigies asking for money. At the end of the night they'd burn the effigies and set off fireworks. (It's not expressly documented, but the next morning everyone probably nursed a really bad hangover.)

A 1769 woodcut showing a Boston wagon with Satan and the Pope.

In large cities the celebrations were be quite elaborate. For example, in Boston gangs of lower-class men and boys pulled their effigies around town on large wagons. The gang members also wore matching devil or choirboy costumes and hired musicians to accompany them. Engravings from the 18th century show these wagons topped with large effigies of the Pope and Satan. What they don't show is that one gang member often dressed in drag and danced on the wagon while lasciviously caressing the effigies.

In addition to the anti-Catholic bigotry, Guy Fawkes Day celebrations usually involved violence. Gang members would sometimes abuse people who didn't give them money, and rival gangs often battled to destroy each others effigies. In Boston, the North End and South End gangs were notorious rivals and frequently ended the night clubbing each other senseless. Innocent bystanders often got injured or worse during the festivities - in 1764 an infant in the North End was killed when it fell under the wagon's wheels. That year the constables dispersed the marchers, but they regrouped a few blocks away and continued.

After the American Revolution Guy Fawkes Day celebrations started to fade away. One theory is that New Englanders didn't want to offend their Catholic French allies who helped them in the war against the British, but a more plausible reason is that they no longer wanted to celebrate a holiday commemorating the salvation of the British government.

Guy Fawkes Day was still celebrated as late as 1893 in Newburyport, Massachusetts where boys paraded around an effigy while blowing horns and carrying jack-o-lanterns. (Jack-o-lanterns, which we now associate exclusively with Halloween, were originally used at any autumn party or celebration.) But by this time Halloween was popular in the U.S., and it eventually absorbed the costumes and general mischief of Guy Fawkes Day. The door-to-door begging for money became our modern practice of trick or treat.

I got most of this information and from an essay by Peter Benes in New England Celebrates: Spectacle, Commemoration and Festivity.