The King is Dead! (Oh, wait…) Long Live the King! (Sanford Ross, pt. 2)

Our last post described Sanford Ross and some of the details of his daily life that are vividly brought out in the diary entries he maintained for fifteen years in his copies of the New England Almanack. One particular detail of the record for January of 1811 stands out:

January 4th: “The Brittish King is Dead our News paper Says”

The “British King” in question was none other than George III, and his death would have been a diary-worthy event indeed to someone who had been in his mid-twenties during the American Revolution.

It would have been even more noteworthy if it had been true: Although this entry is for 1811, George III wouldn’t actually die until 1820. The king certainly wasn’t in the best of health in 1811, but he was still alive.

How did Sanford get it so wrong? Well, he certainly wasn’t alone in his belief, and this entry makes clear that he was only following the lead of his local newspaper. He might have read something like this, which appeared in the Providence Gazette of 5 January:

The account describes a Mr. John Dalrymple bearing the news into Salem and then below, although partially obscured by the poor image, a “Mr. [Ti]tcomb, from Passamaquoddy” who brought the news from Liverpool. The Newport Mercury’s account varies in a few details:

Passamaquoddy is nowhere to be found and neither is Mr. Dalrymple. A glance at the New England Palladium for January 4th offers an explanation:

For some reason the Providence Gazette has added (invented?) a Mr. Dalrymple and moved Mr. Titcomb from Portland to Passamaquoddy.

An already muddled account of the events is then set against the timeline of Ross’s response to them: the entries preceding and following this one are for the 8th of January, so that is presumably when he added it to his journal. But he added it as “omitted above” for the 4th, even though that is the date of neither the event (which had supposedly occurred a month prior) or the first appearance in the newspaper.

Eventually the misinformation was corrected, as here in the 12 January Providence Gazette, where the correction gets less space than “canine madness”:

The layers of confusion in this account of a non-event make it a perfect example of how our understanding a historical period or moment isn’t just about knowing what happened; it’s also about knowing what those contemporary witnesses believed was happening.

Sanford Ross, pt. 1

The previous post offered a note on the Thanksgiving celebrations of 1812 in Rhode Island*. That it turns up in the pages of an almanac is not particularly unusual—almanacs were frequently used for that purpose, which is only natural, considering that almanacs are arranged chronologically. Nor is the customized interleaving done by this owner unusual. What makes this case particularly useful is that the almanac-diaries of a single person over the course of a fairly lengthy period of time (roughly 1806-22) are brought together in one place  and that their author signs his name (Sanford Ross).

A genealogical account** lists a Sanford Ross born on 22 March 1752 and who died on 22 April 1831. He had 11 children with his first wife, Hannah Briggs, and after her death in January of 1809, Sanford married Lydia Peck in November of the same year. Both events are recorded tersely in the diaries: January of 1809: “Hannah Ross died 4th of January half past Seven of the Clock evening” and then in November: “Married 6th November” in the margin beside the calendar. Among his 11 children with Hannah is one named William, who appears in the almanac entry for 9 January 1811:

William’s date of death is not recorded in the family Bible that lists the births and deaths of his siblings. The genealogical account does, however, mention a death notice of a William Sanford who died on a gunboat in 1813, within a year or two of  the night his father dreamed he was at home.

The image above offers a taste of the most typical concerns of the diary: Weather is far and away the most popular topic, but there are also references to things like “uncommond noises”, family members getting or leaving jobs, births, deaths, comings and goings of ships, openings of new shops, and always more weather. (The entry for 4 January will be the topic of a future blog post.)

Over the course of such entries, brief as they are, it’s possible to assemble a picture of their author. Weather, for instance, is only the beginning of Sanford’s interest in nature. The following selection hints at his interest in wildlife, as he notes  the arrival of swallows in April of 1812 not once, but twice:

(Hint: the second reference to the swallows is written vertically in the margin.)

And the bottom of the facing page is an example of the religious, political and financial issues that are frequent as well, as Sanford notes the passing of the Embargo act in April and the fact that he managed to rent half of his church pew for 7 shillings and 6 pence for the year (more information about the practice of buying pews and an example of a particularly nice pew at the website of the Old North Church in Boston). One of the entries below (6 January 1817) provides evidence that Ross was a shop owner of some kind, and the 1824 directory of Providence lists him as a grocer at 228 South Main.

A few more selections:

• Creative Spelling: 5 September 1813: “the Younited States Brigg Enterprize of 14 gun took the Brittish Brigg Boxer of 18 heavy guns”
• The 1814 almanac begins with a full-page tally of the ships of the British and American navies on Lake Ontario.
• 15 December 1814: [In large script] “This Day the Hartford Convention Meets In Hartford…Never forgit the mischef that was Intended by them”.
• 6 April 1815: “Horrid Masscre” followed by a description of the English murder of 7 American prisoners of war after the Treaty of Ghent ended the war. As an example of how importantly the War of 1812 figured into Sanford Ross’s life, the first interleaved leaf of the 1817 almanac opens by noting the beginning of the war in 1812 and its end in 1815.
• 6 January 1817: “This Day the Sun has Rose to clear the Ruff of the widdow Sheldons house & Shines in my Shop all Day.”
• 14 January 1817: “This Day and Night being the coldest that we have had for Several years this Evening a teamster froze to Death a going home from town to Smithfield, by Name James Mitchal Lindsey. Found the Next morning on the Road two miles from home…”
• 6 June 1817: “Mr Peleg Peckhams foot taken off.”
• 28 October 1817: Commenting on the repeal of an act sponsored by James B. Mason, which presumably was burdensome to retailers: “And Maide More Milde that Retailors may try to Live. Fair ye Well James. You have had them Under the hammer Long a Nuff.”
• At the end of the 1817 almanac: “A Receipt to make Spruce Beer”: “6 Gallons of warter and 2 qt of molasses put togeather & Stand in the Sun which will warm it a Nuff then Shake them well — then Put in 1 gill Essence of Spruce & Mix them well togeather — then put in 1 Large tea Spoonfull of Perlash and 1 cup full of Ginger Stir them well togeather when Setteld Put in 1/2 pint of Emptious[?] which wen Setteld will be fitt for Youse.”
• 18 January 1819: “this Day their was 4 Pirats hanged in Boston on Thirsday.”
• 5 July 1819: “A Commet maid its appearence about Nor. Nor West out of site a bout at 11 Clock in Evening and Rises a bout Day light. It plays Round the North Star.”
• 15 August 1819: “heard a Sermand prechd by a woman Mrs. Clarrissa Danforth. in the town house. Preachd from Ezeakel [33] chapter 11 Verse. Veary Good Discorse and Veary full.”
• 18 October 1822: “Whipping Day in town and cutting of Ears and Branding with the letter C as a Counterfitter of money.”

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*Thanksgiving was a sporadic holiday at the time: http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/thanksgiving/

** Reading Room: CS 71 R825 1938. Ross Family: Sanford Ross Descendants. Copy of manuscript.

Happy Thanks Givin

The image below is taken from a copy of the 1812 New England Almanack. This almanac and a few others will be the topic of upcoming posts, but for now the entry for 26 November is a reminder of Thanksgivings past. The owner has interleaved blank paper to provide a convenient space for recording events and thoughts opposite the original almanac pages:

Charter Day

346 years ago this November 24th, 1663 George Baxter was called before the General Court of Commissioners and asked to present the charter brought back from England. King Charles II—
—had signed it in July, and it was now being put into effect in Rhode Island. The moment is recorded as follows*:

Voted… That the box in which the King’s gratious letters weare enclosed be opened, and the letters with the broad seale therto affixed, be taken forth and read by Captayne George Baxter in the audiance and view of all the people… and the sayd letters with his Majestyes Royall Stampe, and the broad seale, with much becoming gravity held up on hyght, and presented to the perfect view of the people, and then returned into the box and locked vp by the Governor, in order to the safe keeping of it.

The box referred to above consists of a rectangular section about 3 feet long with a circular appendage for housing the seal. During the transition from the old State House to the new one in 1900 it was discovered in the attic. The original copy of the charter itself  is still located at the State House, where it is on view in its own safe.  But another copy (found among the effects of John Clarke—who was involved with obtaining the charter in 1663—when he died in 1678) was placed on deposit at the Historical Society**.

Beyond its antiquarian interest, though, the 1663 charter is remarkable for its ideals (the text of the charter is available through Yale’s Avalon Project, among other sources). In sanctioning the “livlie experiment” (hence the title of this blog), the charter was a dramatic statement in support of religious liberty and tolerance.

 

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* In John Russell Bartlett, ed. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. vol. 1 Providence: A. Crawford Greene and Brother, 1856. Pages 508-511.

**  “The Duplicate of the Charter,” and “The Charter Box.”  Rhode Island History 20.4 (October, 1927): 122-4.

Autumn

Now that autumn is in full swing, it’s time to do something with all the apples you’ve picked. To aid in the process, we offer this broadside advertisement from 1863 for a cast iron cider mill:

It looks like the perfect historical apparatus for some of the historical fruit over at the Beineke Library.

This particular grinder has the advantage of speed (60-70 bushels / hour), although from the description, it sounds like the assembly process (“wooding the grinder”) makes Ikea furniture instructions look simple:

Once you have your historic fruit and machinery, you’ll still need a manual: The Cider Maker’s Handbook is available online and also in the real world. In addition to a lot of practical guidance on making the best fermented cider, the book also describes cider presses like this one, a near sibling of a printing press:

RIHS Events

This is a busy time at the Historical Society, and while we have an events calendar as well as a separate listing of Library-specific events, here are three ongoing and upcoming events to keep in mind as you plan the next few weeks:

The first in our series of workshops on Jewish genealogy took place last night, and featured a lot of helpful genealogical advice from George Goodwin and Barbara Carroll. The next session will take place next Wednesday, the 28th, from 6:30-8:30. It’s not too late to register for that session, which will focus on RIHS-specific resources, so visit the calendar for more information on how to do that.

This Saturday is Home Movie Day at the Aldrich House. You can drop off your films (8mm, Super 8, or 16mm) at the Library through Friday. On Saturday, they’ll be on the big screen, and you can get advice on how to care for them. Click here for more information.

Finally, on Saturday, November 7th from 10 to 12:30 we’re offering a workshop on the topic of Caring for Your Family Papers. If you have a box of important family materials that looks like this:then the workshop will be perfect for you. Karen Eberhart, the Library’s Special Collections Curator, will provide a hands-on demonstration of what to do to make sure that the irreplaceable materials documenting your family history are available for the long term. Participants will also receive an archival starter kit with some basic archival supplies. The workshop will be held at the Library, and space is limited, so reserve a spot by calling (401) 273-8107 x12. More information available through the events calendar.

Dancing with the Caroline Islanders

RIHS Collections Assistant Delia Kovac recently came across an item that has everything a Hollywood movie script could ask for: travel, adventure, “natives”, and—of course—dancing:

The Life and Adventures of James F. O’Connell, The Tattoed Man. During a Residence of Eleven Years in New Holland and the Caroline Islands, Providence: J.F. Moore, 1846. (CT275 .O18 A3)

Here’s an outline of the story with some selected quotes:

• O’Connell realizes his mother is a circus performer
• Sails as a cabin boy on a transport ship for female convicts (“… two hundred ‘ladies’—for so I suppose we are bound to style them…”)
• Joins as a crewman on a whaler and ends up in a storm (“the sea looked…as if it was filled with white cats coming to take our vessel by storm”)
• Shipwreck, four grueling days in a lifeboat, death of companions, suggestions of cannibalism, etc., etc.
• Washes up in the Caroline Islands, eating “the flesh of the kangaroo and bandycoot”
• Plenty of racism (the “savages” are “the connecting link between apes and men…”)

So far, an exciting enough life, but it’s the next phase—with its dancing and tattooing that makes O’Connell’s story so successful:

• In 1826, on board another whaler headed to Japan (“bowling along under easy sail”)
• The ship runs into a coral reef (“Captain Backus was, as usual, drunk on the hencoop”)
• In a lifeboat with a missionary’s wife and daughter and some other sailors. The mother and daughter die on the third day in the lifeboat and are buried at sea. Land sighted the next day.
• O’Connell captured by island residents and brought to the canoe-house, where he is poked and prodded (“My companions feared the Indians were cannibals, and that this examination  was to discover whether we were in good roasting case”)
• “In a sort of desperate feeling of recklessness, I determined to try the experiment of dancing upon our savage audience . . . I struck in to Garry Owen, and figured away in that famous jig to the best of my ability and agility.”
• The islanders are pleased. More displays of dancing.
• O’Connell’s dancing is rewarded with a free tattoo from some of the island’s women (” … with a sudden blow from a stick, drove the thorns into my flesh. One needs must when the devil drives; so I summoned all my fortitude, set my teeth, and bore it like a martyr. Between every blow my beauty dipped her thorns in the ink.”)
• O’Connell’s companion doesn’t hold up as well to the tattooing (“He swore and raved without any attention to rule; the way he did it was profane, but not syntaxical or rhetorical”)
• “In the afternoon there came a fresh supply of ladies, who continued tattooing operations on my left arm.”
• Eight full days of tattooing. A month to recover
• “To relieve our weariness, George made a flute of a reed, and fiddle of some light wood; while I, on my part had music in my sole.” (Author’s italics. Surprisingly, he wasn’t killed on the spot for that pun.)
• “The parrots squawled and the dogs howled at a distance, and the scene was romantic enough; but I was more given to dancing than sublime contemplation.”
• Married life: “At night I learned that the young lady who imprinted the last marks upon my arm and breast, was my wife! that last tattooing being part of the marriage ceremony.”
• “My wife was only about fourteen years of age–affectionate, faithful, and fond of baked dogs. During my residence on the island she presented me with two little demi-savages, a girl and a boy…”
• “Happening, however, to awake at midnight, I detected her solacing her grief with a dog’s drum stick…”
• Certain types of cannibalism really are to be expected: “…cannibalism, a practice which is unknown on Bonabee, except, perhaps, so far as tasting an enemy’s heart goes.”
• A variety of failed escape attempts
• O’Connell discovers a “large uninhabited island, upon which were stupendous ruins of a character of architecture differing altogether from the present style of of the islanders.”
• Takes part in a nautical canoe battle between two groups of islanders (prompted by his marriage) that involves deadly slingshots
• Leaves at last on a passing ship and soon gets into a fight with the captain
• Back in Manilla, the captain has O’Connell locked up in jail (“the calabozo”), but he continues to dance
• Apparently, after his return O’Connell and his tattoos were exhibited in circus-fashion.

How much of the story is actually true remains an open question. But in either case, it’s an exciting read.

Rhode Island Radio Lecture on Thursday

Despite being repeatedly and prematurely pronounced dead (at the hand of television, the internet, or whatever comes next), radio is still alive more than a hundred years after its birth.

This Thursday NERFC fellow Helen York will highlight the lives of two Rhode Island radio luminaries: Salty Brine and Warren Walden.

Full event details are available on our events calendar.

More information about Salty Brine is available in his Providence Journal obituary (which includes a slideshow of pictures through the years), and a quick overview with trivia is available through Quahog.org. Or you can stop in at the Library and view our collection of his papers. And for getting into the spirit of the times, Duke University’s collection of print radio advertising offers priceless items like “The Rainbow of Sound.”

Rhode Island Historical Society Awarded $99,400 Grant for Graphics Inventory Project

By Karen Eberhart, Special Collections Curator

From a hand-drawn map of Block Island created in 1661 to footage of Vincent “Buddy” Cianci’s first mayoral campaign in 1974, the Rhode Island Historical Society (RIHS) holds the world’s largest collection of audio and visual materials documenting to the history of Rhode Island.  In this blog on May 14, 2009 Jim DaMico reported on the progress of the Graphics Collection inventory project dedicated to uncovering all the riches within the collection.  We are now pleased to announce the continuation of that project thanks to a $99,400 grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).  With this funding, the RIHS can complete the final 3 years of the 5.5 year project to inventory all of our audiovisual materials.

The IMLS is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums and competition for the grants is always steep.  The RIHS was one of 154 grant recipients of out of a total of 371 applicants to the Museums for America grant program this year.

During the inventory, each item is examined and fundamental information collected in a database.  In the near term, that information will, for the first time, make a large portion of the Graphics division accessible to the public through the RIHS online public catalog, NETOP.  The inventory will also generate statistics that will be indispensible for prioritizing future work and maximizing staff efficiency for years into the future.

Material to be inventoried includes:

• Examples of early color photography such as an autochrome-process glass plate,  circa 1910.
• 1950s recordings on the once-common Dictaphone belts.
• Family photos from the 1840s to the 2000s providing rich documentation of life in Rhode Island.
• Architectural drawings of public buildings as well as of modest single family homes, all representative of the building styles and architectural history of the state.

“This Sanguinary Monster”*: The Pirate Gibbs, pt. 2

The recent high-profile acts of piracy in Somalia have highlighted the divide between the reality of piracy and our romanticized notions of it. But the desire to glamorize the swashbuckling while ignoring the blood and guts is nothing new**. A New York Times article of 1892 cataloging various famous pirates begins, “It cannot but be a source of regret to every true lover of the picturesque that pirates are no more and piracy has lost its popularity. What tremendous fellows they must have been!” The article includes a paragraph on Charles Gibbs, who is described as having a “soft spot for the fair sex” and being “remarkable for quoting the Bible with great frequency and fluency.” Describing Gibbs’ conversion from grocer to pirate, the author asks “who wouldn’t rather be a gallant pirate with a smart vessel and a picked crew than a grocer in Ann Street, near the Tin Pot?”

The previous post offered an overview of Gibbs’ career as offered in a single one of many published accounts of his life and death, Mutiny and Murder: Confession of Charles Gibbs. This post will highlight a few of the other versions of this popular tale that were offered to the public.***

In The Annals of Murder Thomas McDade lists 13 individual editions prior to 1900 offering an account of Gibbs’ life (Although one particular item makes the count a little difficult.). All those that are dated were published in 1831 or 1832. The Historical Society holds seven of those listed as well as two that are not recorded in Annals of Murder. The latter two imprints**** are apparently unique to the Historical Society; no other copies are listed either in OCLC or a number of international library catalogs.

While not unique, one item—Confessions and Execution of the Pirates, Gibbs & Wansley—is by far the most graphically and bibliographically unusual. This is how McDade describes the book’s physical construction*****:

1 p.l., [2]-32 [i.e. 8] p.; 16, 32 [i.e. 8] p.: total 32p.

“I.e.” usually indicates something out of the ordinary, and this publication offers plenty of that. The item appears to be a sammelband made up of three separate publications, as indicated in the collational formula above, but even that is uncertain.

The first eight pages offer a blow-by-blow account of the execution itself, with a strong emphasis on the penitent attitude of the pirates as they faced their death. Thomas Wansley, Gibbs companion and clearly described and depicted as a black pirate in this publication, had apparently been writing poetry in his cell:

On the verso of the poem is the following illustration, just in case we’ve begun to sympathize with the penitent and poetic buccaneers:

These eight pages function as a self-contained, coherent unit, and this is echoed in their physical makeup: they are a single four-leaf gathering.

The next gathering begins with the image used at the beginning of this post, a title page with vertical text and a full-length portrait of Gibbs. As you can see from the image, this copy was published after the execution, as it describes Gibbs as the pirate “who was executed on the 22nd of April”. Another variant state of the work also in the Library’s holdings is composed of a nearly identical text (the first and last words of each page match) and a slightly, but significantly, different title page. Rather than “Who was executed,” this title page reads “To be Executed.” The only other significant difference is that the publisher’s name is misspelled as “Christitn Brown” rather than “Christian Brown,” possibly providing evidence that the pre-execution version was offered with a hastily put-together title page. In either case, the two variants bracket the moment of execution in a concrete way (Gibbs is alive for the first and not for the second.).

The third and final gathering is a work titled “A Visit to the Condemned Criminals, Gibbs and Wansley, By a Layman.” (It’s unclear whether “layman” in this context indicates that the author is not a professional pirate or not a professional jail-visitor.). Like the first gathering, it is of 4 leaves, and like the first gathering it includes poetry and an image on a page incorrectly numbered “32″:******

And on the preceding page, this illustration of the ultimate end for pirates (or, perhaps, vampires):

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* The description of Gibbs used at the beginning of the narration of his execution in Horrible Confessions of the Pirate and Murderer.

** A recent New Yorker article reviews the legitimate economic and political aspects behind a favorable view of piracy: Caleb Crain, “Bootylicious: What Do the Pirates of Yore Tell Us about Their Modern Counterparts?”  The New Yorker, 2 September 2009.

***Call numbers and titles:

• Vault F 2162 .G44 H8: Horrible Confessions of the Pirate and Murderer; Charles Gibbs, alias James Jeffreys. [s.l.]: Printed for the Purchasers, April 1831.
• Vault F 2161 .G44 C74:  Confession of Charles Gibbs the Pirate. To Be Executed the 22d of April, 1831. New York: Printed and Sold by Christitn [Christian] Brown, n.d.
• Vault F 2161 .G44 L34: The Confessions of Charles Gibbs, the Pirate, Who Acknowledges that He Has Assisted in the Murder of Four Hundred Human Beings! [s.l.]: Printed for the Purchasers, 1831.
  bound with:
  Last Dying Words and Confession of Charles Gibbs, The Pirate. [s.l.]: [s.n.], 1831.
• Vault F 2161 .G44 C748: Confessions and Execution of the Pirates, Gibbs & Wansley. New York: Printed and Sold by Christian Brown, [n.d.]. Includes McDade nos. 337, 342 / 345.

**** Horrible Confessions and The Confession of Charles Gibbs, the Pirate, Who Acknowledges . . . are the unique copies. Oddly, both copies’ imprints state, “Printed for the Purchasers,” a curious attribution that seems, based on searches in WorldCat and the ESTC, to have been used solely in the US during a period from 1775-1831.

***** McDade’s response: “This kind of publication taxes the resources of the bibliographer.”

****** For the numerologico-bibliographers out there, yes, this is a 32-page (16 leaf) item with a central gathering of 8 leaves surrounded by two 4 leaf gatherings, pages 8 and 32 both marked “32″, even though the preceding pages are “5″ and “7″.