Brookline's Old Burying Ground: Slaves, Smallpox, and Witch Trials

The other day I visited the Old Burying Ground in Brookline, Massachusetts. Brookline is a very well-maintained, genteel town right next to Boston, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Old Burying Ground is a little scruffy. When I was inside its gates I felt like I was transported to the past even though I was really only a few blocks from an MBTA stop. Goodbye home-brewing store and arthouse movie theater, hello crumbling gravestones and ancient oak trees!

Brookline was originally settled in the early 1600s as a hamlet of Boston called Muddy River (after the body of water that runs through it). By 1705 it became a separate town and took its current name (after two brooks that separated it from Boston). So in other words, Brookline is old, and although it is now a tasteful liberal suburb it does have some strange and unsavory things lurking in its past. The good old days weren't always that good...

For example, a sign inside the Old Burying Ground notes that eleven slaves are buried somewhere in the cemetery. Slavery was abolished in Massachusetts in 1782. I didn't see any indicators denoting where the slaves were buried. It's possible their graves are mixed in with the other graves, or perhaps were not even marked. That same sign that mentions the slaves also notes that many burials had been disturbed over the years as the cemetery became more and more crowded, so perhaps the actual locations of the slave burials have long since been lost. 

Edward Devotion's grave

I did find the grave of Edward Devotion, whose name has recently been connected with slavery in the local media. Devotion was an important person in the founding of Brookline and donated money and land upon his death for a town school. When the school was finally built (more than a century after his death) it was named the Edward Devotion School. The public school stands near Coolidge Corner and was attended by John F. Kennedy when he was a child.

This sound like an inspiring story of philanthropy, but people recently learned that Edward Devotion was a slave owner. An inventory of Devotion's estate upon his death included "one Negrow." So perhaps he isn't the best person to name a school after? On May 28, the Brookline town meeting voted to remove Devotion's name from the school. The school will be called the Coolidge Corner School until a new name is voted on. 

Anna Mather's grave

Near Devotion's gravestone I found the grave of Anna Mather, who died in 1734 at the age of 74. The name Mather may sound familiar if you've read anything about the Salem witch trials. Anna Mather was the second wife of Increase Mather, one of Boston's most prominent Boston Puritan ministers (and also a  president of Harvard University). When the Salem witch trials broke out the governor of Massachusetts turned to Increase for his opinion. He urged the magistrates to proceed with caution, but did not denounce the use of "spectral evidence" until much later in the trials. Spectral evidence were the dreams, visions and possible hallucinations that the magistrates used as evidence to convict defendants of witchcraft, even though no one could verify any of them. I think you can see why this might be problematic.

Increase Mather eventually did denounce spectral evidence, writing "It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that one Innocent Person should be Condemned." He never denounced the trials themselves though, possibly because many of his friends and peers served as magistrates during them. After the trials ended his reputation was permanently damaged. He married Anna Mather in 1715, many years after the trials concluded.

Increase Mather's son Cotton Mather was also a prominent minister who was involved with the Salem witch trials. His 1689 account of several possessed Boston children, Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, is believed to have set a precedent for the Salem trials that began three years later. Cotton was a strong supporter of the trials, and even wrote to Chief Justice William Stoughton to congratulate him on executing eleven people for witchcraft. Cotton is also infamous for urging the magistrates to execute Reverend George Burroughs for witchcraft even after Burroughs successfully said the Lord's Prayer, which it was believed a witch could not recite. Cotton's reputation suffered even more than his father's after the trials ended. 

However, he did a few good things, and one of them was to promote inoculation. Smallpox was greatly feared in early Boston and two epidemics swept through the city's crowded and unsanitary streets in 1690 and 1702. In 1721 another epidemic broke out. Inoculation was known in parts of the Old World, and Mather had learned about it from his slave Onesimus. Mather urged Boston physician Zabdiel Boylston to try inoculating Bostonians against smallpox. Boylston agreed, and of the 287 people he inoculated only six died. More than 800 people who were not inoculated died in that epidemic. 

The grave of Joshua Woodward

The grave of Mary Russell

Unfortunately inoculation did not become a widespread practice until many years later, and I found graves of two smallpox victims in Brookline's Old Burying Ground. One is for Joshua Woodward, who died from smallpox in 1776 at the age of 46. That is quite young, but not as young as poor Mary Russell, "the virtuous and amiable daughter of Capt. John and Mrs. Miriam Russell" who died from the disease in 1792 at the age of 14 "to the inexpressible grief of her friends."

I like reading about the past, and really love visiting old graveyards. But I am quite happy to live in the present. Our country does face some significant problems these days, but happily we don't have slavery, witch trials, or smallpox epidemics. Let's keep those things buried in the past.

A Witch Trial and A Slave's Testimony from 1679

A while ago I posted about how Tituba, the famous Arawak Indian slave from the Salem witch trials, came to be portrayed as black in fiction and drama.

That post got a lot of hits, but I think it's important to point out that while Tituba was not of African descent many other people involved with New England witchcraft were. Witchcraft was an equal opportunity belief system, and people of all races were accused of witchcraft. For example, a black slave named Candy was accused during the Salem trials, but happily was not found guilty, even after her accusers produced evidence in the form of a poppet she had allegedly made.

In Rhode Island, a black woman named Tuggie Bannock had a reputation as a powerful witch in the 1800s, well after the witchcraft trials had ended. And as historian William Pierson writes in his book Black Yankees (1988), many people of African descent across New England worked as diviners, fortune-tellers, and herbalists.

One of the earliest accounts from New England of a black person involved with witchcraft comes from 1679. In December of that year, a black slave named Wonn testified in the Salem court against a woman named Bridget Oliver. Oliver was an outspoken woman who had been married multiple times, and when her current husband Thomas Oliver beat her she would hit him back. Naturally, her neighbors in Salem suspected this independent woman of witchcraft.

Wonn testified to the court that one day the horses hauling his sled mysteriously and unaccountably ran into a swamp up to the their bellies. This doesn't seem like very significant evidence, but several witnesses said they had never seen horses behave so strangely before. And what unseen force had frightened them into the swamp anyway?

A week later Wonn saw Bridget Oliver's specter perched upon a beam in the barn, holding an egg in one hand. He swung at her with a rake but she disappeared. Finally, as Wonn ate dinner that evening two strange black cats appeared in the house. Upon seeing the cats Wonn tried to speak, but felt himself pinched by invisible hands.

Although Wonn (which is perhaps an older spelling of Juan) was of African descent his testimony contains many elements of classic New England witchcraft. The misbehaving livestock is a common trope, and bewitched draft animals often allegedly brought their wagons or carts into swamps or rivers. The black cats and invisible pinching are also classic witchery.

I'm not so sure about the egg, though, which I haven't seen in too many stories. Was Bridget Oliver stealing the egg? Was she brandishing it as a threat and planning to use it in a spell? It's not clear, but it's a very powerful image.

Bridget Oliver was initially found guilty based on Wonn's testimony, but the court later let her go free. She wasn't so lucky thirteen years later in 1692. Then married to her third husband and called Bridget Bishop, she was again found guilty of witchcraft again and hanged on June 10.

The history books don't tell us what happened afterwards to Wonn. Did he really think he was bewitched by Bridget Oliver? Did he have a personal grudge against her, or was he put up to it by his owner, John Ingersoll? Was Wonn still in Salem in 1692 for the witch trials? It's all a mystery.

*****

Special thanks go out to my friend Ed for suggesting this as a topic after he read New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America (2016) by Wendy Warren. I also got information from William Pierson's Black Yankees (1988) and Marilynne Roach's The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-By-Day Chronicle of A Community Under Siege (2002).

The Lingering Wolf: Israel Putnam's Acts of Heroism

Israel Putnam (1718 - 1790) is one of the great folk heroes of Connecticut. He had the type of crazy exploits that could only be had in our country's infancy.

For example, Putnam escaped British soldiers during the Revolution by leaping over a cliff with his horse. He challenged someone to a duel where they both sat on lit kegs of gun powder. He was even briefly the commander-in-chief of American forces during the Revolution. He is also rumored to have been the person who said, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" at the Battle of Bunker Hill. I don't anyone alive will ever be quite so heroic.

Before he became a war hero Putnam was a hard-working farmer in Pomfret, Connecticut. He had moved to the town in 1739 at the tender age of 21. But even as farmer Putnam demonstrated heroism.

Israel Putnam

Pomfret was a prosperous farming community, but it had one major problem. A she-wolf lived on the outskirts of town, and she and her pups frequently ravaged the town's livestock. The townspeople had been able to trap and kill all her children, but the she-wolf herself always escaped their snares. But not without damage - she had once lost two of her toes in a trap.

One winter day Israel Putnam went to check his livestock, and was horrified when he entered the barn to see that seventy of his sheep and goats had been slaughtered. Outside the barn he saw wolf prints in the snow leading into the woods. One of the paw prints only had three toes.

Putnam rounded up some neighbors, and along with one of his slaves and some hounds set off to track down the she-wolf. The animal's tracks led them through the woods and across the hills for miles, until they led at last into a cave only a few miles from the Putnam farm. Putnam laughed! He had the murderous wolf trapped.

He first sent one of his hounds into the cave. Putnam and his neighbors heard terrible growling and barking from inside the cave. The hound came running out, wounded and bloody and with its tail between its legs. Putnam thought, "Hmmm! Time for plan two."

Putnam turned to his slave and instructed him to enter the cave and kill the wolf. Having seen what happened to the wolf, the slave refused. Putnam thought for a moment and said, "Alright, then I'll do it myself."

Putnam asked his neighbors to tie a rope around his ankle and then crawled into the cave, which was long, low and narrow. As he reached the end of the cave he could see the wolf's eyes shining in the torchlight. It growled menacingly. Putnam realized he had left his rifle outside, so he pulled on the roped. His neighbors pulled him out as fast as they could, dragging him across the sharp stones and ripping his clothes.

Bloodied but still determined, he grabbed his rifle and crawled back into the cave. His neighbors heard a single gunshot, and felt a tug on the rope. They pulled Putnam out (more slowly this time), and when he emerged from the cave he had the wolf with him. It was dead.

An 1835 drawing of the wolf's den (Connecticut Historical Society)

The wolf was hung on a spike inside the local tavern, and all the local farmers came to celebrate. Israel Putnam was declared a hero, and this youthful act of heroism set the tone for the rest of his illustrious life. Would he ever have been a war hero if he hadn't first killed that wolf?

The wolf is certainly still closely associated with Israel Putnam. Wolf heads adorn his monument in Brooklyn, Connecticut, and when the Abington Social Library in Abington, Connecticut wanted to honor Putnam's memory they asked a sculptor to carve a wolf statue from wood.

Things didn't go too well for the library. The sculptor made them a statue, but it burned in a fire of unknown cause before he could deliver it. He carved a second one, but this too burned in a mysterious fire. I would have given up, but the sculptor must have really needed a paycheck, because he finally carved and delivered a third statue to the Abington Social Library.

The third statue didn't go up in flames, but something odd happened when it was delivered to the library. Everyone in the building heard the eerie howling of a wolf, which seemed to be coming from outside the building. The next day they saw wolf tracks surrounding the library in the snow. One of the paw prints only had three toes.

The wolf's den is located in Mashamoquet Brook State Park, only a short distance from the library, and a plaque next to the den recounts Putnam's slaying of the wolf. It was the last wolf ever seen in Connecticut, but it sounds like its ghost is still lurking around. Israel Putnam's ghost is also supposedly still lurking around the area, and is seen most frequently in the building where his funeral was held.

Maybe Putnam is waiting for another heroic opportunity, but it was a lot easier to be a hero in the 1700s. New England was much more agricultural then, and of course Israel Putnam had to kill the wolf. If he didn't, more people would lose livestock and possibly starve during the winter. But to a modern sensibility killing an animal doesn't seem quite so heroic. It's not like he killed it with his bare hands - he shot it when it was cornered. And he decided to go into the cave only after his slave refused. A wolf-shooting slave owner would go to prison in the 21st century.

I'm happy the wolf's ghost might still be around. It can keep Putnam's ghost company, and maybe the two of them can resolve some of the conflicting issues of guilt and heroism that this story creates.

I got the information for this week's post from David Philips's Legendary Connecticut: Traditional Tales from the Nutmeg State, and Donna Kent's Ghost Stories and Legends of Eastern Connecticut. 

Rum Shrub

Tony and I had a party this weekend, and as happens at most parties the guests brought bottles of wine to share. But unlike most parties, a lot of the wine remained unopened at the end of the night.

We mentioned this to a friend who attended and he said, "Oh, that's because instead of wine everyone drank the punch. You know, the rum shrub."

Oh, right the rum shrub!

No, it's not a bush. A shrub is an alcoholic drink that was popular in the colonial era. It seems to come in two forms: either a cordial made from liquor and fruit, or a punch-like concoction made from liquor, sugar and fruit juice. Unlike a traditional punch, a punch-like shrub is made days or weeks in advance to let the flavors mellow.

I made my rum shrub from a recipe I found in Yankee Magazine's Lost and Vintage Recipes. The authors say their recipe comes from Newport, Rhode Island, which was once the rum capital of the world. We'll revisit that fact in a minute.

Basically, the recipe involved twelve cups of rum, lemon and lime juice, sugar and some water. Stir it up in a big bowl and let it sit for at least a week. It was really good! I could definitely taste the rum but the citrus and the sugar mellowed out the alcohol flavor. One person at the party said, "It's like a Colonial margarita!"

Add ice. Drink.

Doesn't it seem odd that Newport was the rum capital of the world? Rum is made from sugar products, usually molasses, and even with global warming no one's growing sugar cane in New England. Molasses, despite its omnipresence in New England cookery, is imported from warmer climates like the Caribbean.

Rum was probably first discovered in the 1600s in the Caribbean by plantation slaves, who realized that molasses (which is a by-product of the sugar manufacturing process) could be distilled into a delicious liquor. The Caribbean islands lacked the skilled workforce and lumber needed for a large-scale rum industry, but New England had both. The first rum distillery in New England opened in Boston in 1667.

New England merchants engaged in what is known as the "triangle trade" to make and sell their rum. First, they would buy molasses in the Caribbean. Ships would carry the rum to New England where it was distilled into rum. Ships would then carry the rum to western Africa where it was sold for slaves. The slaves were shipped to the Caribbean where they were sold for more molasses. A profit was made on each point of the triangle, helping to make New England one of the wealthier regions in North America.

As a New Englander I don't usually think much about this region's role in the slave trade. After all, there weren't a lot of large plantations here, and the Abolitionist movement was very strong here, right?

Both true, but it doesn't change the fact that a lot of people in New England got very rich from the slave trade. So many of the historic dishes from this region, like baked beans, brown bread, Indian pudding, and Joe Froggers get their distinctive molasses flavor from human misery.

I'm not going to stop making these foods or enjoying molasses, but like every part of the world I need to remember that our region's history is very, very complicated.