Tag: Danvers

Book Discussion at Danvers Historical Society

On By Daniel A. GagnonIn 1692 Witch Trials, Danvers History, Uncategorized2 Comments

This Wednesday, December 15, I will be giving a talk at the Danvers Historical Society about my new biography of Salem Village Witch-Hunt victim Rebecca Nurse: A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse. The event is free, and starts at 7pm in Tapley Memorial Hall on Page Street. In addition to Nurse, whose home is a museum today on Pine St. in Danvers, I’ll also discuss some of Danvers’ other links to the 1692 Witch-Hunt. Books will be available for sale and for signing. More details can be found here.

For long-distance followers of the blog, the Danvers Historical Society presentation will be recorded and posted on their website after the event. Additionally, on January 6th I will be giving a Zoom presentation on the book with the Rockport, Mass. public library. Details for that free event can be found here.

For more information on A Salem Witch, reviews, and links to order it, see my author website here.

Rest assured, there will be more Danvers history blog posts in the coming year.

-Dan Gagnon

Salem Village Historical Walking Tour 2022

On By Daniel A. GagnonIn 1692 Witch Trials, Danvers History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

In partnership with Salem Historical Tours and the Danvers Historical Society, on six Saturday mornings this fall I am giving a walking tour of several Salem Village historic sites in Danvers related to the 1692 witch-hunt. A portion of the ticket price goes to support the Danvers Historical Society.

For more info: https://www.salemhistoricaltours.com/salem-village-witch-hunt-walking-tour

Salem is where people visit to learn about the 1692 witchcraft trials, but Danvers, formerly Salem Village, is where it first began on a cold February day.

Two young girls began acting out and the local doctor’s diagnosis was that they must be under the Devil’s hand. The witch-hunt was off and running, turning neighbor against neighbor.

You’ll visit several significant historical sites including the remains of the parsonage where Reverend Samuel Parris’ 9-year-old daughter Betty and 11-year-old niece Abigail had their fits that began the witch-hunt.

This special tour will be held on six Saturdays in September and October. The walking tour will be all outside, and stops along the way will include the Training Field, Parsonage site, Ingersoll’s tavern, the Salem Village Witch Trials Memorial, and the First Church of Danvers (Salem Village Church).

Daniel A. Gagnon, a life-long Danvers resident and author of A Salem Witch, will lead the tour that will give you a greater understanding of one of the more compelling stories of our country’s early history.

Available to book now. Tickets are $25. Details on the meeting location in Danvers and directions will be in the confirmation email.

For more info: https://www.salemhistoricaltours.com/salem-village-witch-hunt-walking-tour

Dr. Samuel Holten – Danvers Patriot

On By Daniel A. GagnonIn Danvers History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Photo of the Samuel Holten House, June 2021

Last week the Salem News had two articles (see Erin Nolan’s reporting here and here) about a curious auction: the letters of Danvers patriot leader Dr. Samuel Holten. Taking place in Cincinnati, Ohio the auction of 200 letters between Holten and other famous patriot leaders was expected to go for about $10,000-$15,000 but instead sold for more than $46,000. Who is this Danvers revolutionary whose writings are so valuable?

Holten, a member of both the Continental Congress and the first US Congress, rose to prominence as a leader of the patriot cause well before the American Revolution. Educated by the Rev. Peter Clarke in the parsonage of the First Church of Danvers, he was destined for Harvard at age 12 before illness prevented him from attending. Instead, he studied medicine with Dr. Jonathan Prince, and opened his own practice at age 18. He became active in Danvers politics and the local militia, rising to the rank of Major.

His first steps towards becoming a revolutionary occurred in September 1768, when word spread throughout Massachusetts that British troops were being sent to the colony to restore order, and ostensibly to put down protests over British policies in Boston and other towns. An extralegal, unofficial meeting was called in Boston to decide how to respond to the approaching British fleet. One hundred and four Massachusetts towns and districts each elected a representative to attend, and Holten attended as Danvers’ representative.

Meeting even after the royal governor declared it an illegal assembly, these delegates voted to petition the government in London and to protest against the British troops. A month later, when British troops arrived, news of this convention had already reached them and this show of opposition so alarmed the British fleet that they feared Massachusetts may have already taken up arms. Upon their arrival, they therefore sailed their warships into Boston Harbor in battle formation, with their cannon aimed at Boston, and disembarked troops in full battle gear, as if invading an enemy land.

Holten continued to oppose British policies over the next few years, as events such as the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party occurred, and as the people of Danvers began boycotting tea and other British goods. Holten was Danvers’ delegate to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1774, when General Thomas Gage ordered the Massachusetts legislature to be dissolved because it was controlled by patriots opposed to Gage’s administration in Massachusetts. Instead, the House of Representatives declared themselves to be a “Massachusetts Provincial Congress,” the true representatives of the people, and therefore the legitimate authority in Massachusetts – not General Gage.

Portrait of Samuel Holten, painted circa 1790. Image from Wikimedia, portrait currently in the Danvers Archival Center.

After war broke out when the British advanced on Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, the British soldiers retreated into Boston, leaving the Provincial Congress and the Massachusetts militia in control of the rest of Massachusetts. Holten was appointed to the executive committee that served in place of a governor – since General Gage still claimed to be the rightful governor of Massachusetts.

Recognized for his ability and dedication to the patriot cause, in 1777 Holten was among the Massachusetts representatives to the convention that drafted the Articles of Confederation, America’s first constitutional document, and he signed the Articles on behalf of Massachusetts alongside John Adams, John Hancock, and other revolutionary leaders.

From 1778 to 1780, he represented Massachusetts in the Second Continental Congress, returned home to help draft the Massachusetts Constitution, and then once the Articles of Confederation were ratified served in the Congress of the Confederation, at one point serving temporarily as its president during a brief absence by Richard Henry Lee. Since there was no executive branch under the Confederation, President of Congress was the highest political office in America.

After returning once again to Massachusetts to serve in the state senate, he was elected and served as Congressman from 1793-1795 in the third U.S. Congress under the new federal Constitution. Notable for being a supporter of Thomas Jefferson, he was an opponent of the first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. After his time in Congress ended in 1795, he continued holding elected positions in Danvers, and was an Essex County Probate Court judge.

After he returned to Danvers, Holten continued to live in his family’s house at the intersection of what are now Holten Street, Centre Street, and Collins Street. This historic structure, located in the Salem Village Historic District, has been owned and preserved by the Gen. Israel Putnam Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution since 1921. Built in 1670 by his ancestor Benjamin Holten, the Holten family also played a prominent role in the 1692 witch trials, with members of the family among both the accusers and defenders of those accused of witchcraft.

Photo of the Samuel Holten House, in the 1890s. Frank Cousins photo, Digital Commonwealth.

Dr. Samuel Holten died in January 1816, and is buried in the Holten Burying Ground, which bears his name on Holten Street. Once Danvers established its first public high school in 1850, it was named Holten High School in his honor, the name used until the new Danvers High School was built in Woodvale in the 1960s. The old high school building and the old Richmond junior high building are currently used for the Holten-Richmond Middle School.

  • Photo of Samuel Holten’s grave in the 1890s. Frank Cousins photo in Digital Commonwealth.
  • Photo of Samuel Holten’s Grave, June 2021

In addition to Holten’s letters that were recently auctioned, he has other letters in the collections of many major archives and libraries that were written to various leaders of the American Revolution, papers from his medical practice are at Harvard’s Countway Library of Medicine, and there are many of his documents located in the Danvers Archival Center.

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Dan Gagnon is a lifelong Danvers resident and the author of the forthcoming biography A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse.

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Sources:

Mulholland, Elizabeth. “Judge Samuel Holten and His House.” In 250th Anniversary of the Town of Danvers, 98. Danvers, Mass.: Danvers 250th Committee, 202AD.

Tapley, Harriet S. Chronicles of Danvers (Old Salem Village), Massachusetts, 1632-1923. Danvers, Mass.: The Danvers Historical Society, 1923.

Town of Danvers. The Celebration of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Establishment of the Town of Danvers, Massachusetts, as a Seperate Municipality. Boston, Mass.: Fort Hill Press, 1907.

Livestreamed Tour of the Rebecca Nurse Homestead

On By Daniel A. GagnonIn 1692 Witch Trials, Danvers History, Media Appearances, UncategorizedLeave a comment

On August 1, 2020, I presented a livestreamed tour of the Rebecca Nurse Homestead that was broadcast online as part of America’s Summer Roadtrip 2020, a program that allowed people to virtually ‘visit’ historic sites that otherwise might not be accessible during the coronavirus. The Nurse Homestead, the only home of a victim of the 1692 Salem Village Witch-Hunt that is preserved and open to the public, was chosen as one of 12 significant sites in American history to participate in this program that drew thousands of viewers from across the world.

The recorded tour of the Nurse Homestead can be viewed here: Nurse Homestead – America’s Summer Roadtrip 2020

Turn-Of-The-Century Danvers

On By Daniel A. GagnonIn Danvers History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

(In the Herald-Citizen 7/10/2020)

Gasolene Engine

As the 20th century dawned, Danvers’ long-held farm town traditions became mixed with a new century of business and commerce that revolutionized daily life for Danversites. The program for Danvers’ 150th celebration in 1902 reveals much about what life was like in Danvers that year. The anniversary events are significant – with a grand parade led by Penn Hussey (whose equestrian statue is on Water St.), band concerts, a bicycle race, a “Rube” who gave a “unicycle exposition,” and races between the Danvers volunteer fire companies – but what is truly interesting and revealing are the advertisements. With ads such as a pig seller’s notice that declared “All the hogs are not found on the end seat of street cars,” those for horse products such as iron shoes, farm supplies that included new “gasolene” engines, the new “steam laundry” in town, and the electrician who advertised “speaking tubes,” the program provides a picture of a small turn-of-the-century agricultural town.

The vast majority of businesses noted in the program were clustered around Danvers Square, and one business advertised free telegram delivery within a mile of the Square. There are some similarities between the Square of 1902, and the center of town today. Luciano Zollo, a self-described “champion hair cutter” advertised a “Bay of Naples shaving parlor” at 64 Maple Street, and Zollo’s barbershop has been a fixture ever since.

Zollo ad

Perley’s Corner Market, a combination grocery store and general store that opened in 1800, stood where CVS is today, and CVS serves more or less the same function as Perley’s store did then. Another grocer advertised that they were a distributor of King Arthur Flour, still in stores today. Though there was no Knights of Columbus on Elm Street, there was the Catholic Order of Foresters, a fraternal organization that provided life insurance to its members – a function of the K of C today.

Perley's Corner

Order of Foresters

In contrast, many business practices have changed in the past century. Several business ads give not only the address of their business, but also the proprietor’s home address where business was also transacted. In 1902 some businesses did not have their own telephone number, and their ads simply note “telephone connection,” and one had to call the operator to be connected through. Moving goods was its own issue in the day of horse carts, and several freight carriers advertised their services. One such company announced its four daily trips into Boston where goods could be transferred to “railroads and steamboats,” and also reminded its customers that it “Runs direct to Danvers Asylum daily.”

Freight Express

Some businesses seemed to provide odd combinations of services: An express freight delivery company also sold sod cutters. One Salem business advertised “Balletto tables” (now known as pool/billiards tables), along with cameras, and “All kinds of talking machines. All kinds of records. All kinds of talking machine supplies and repairs.” J. F. Porter in Danvers Square sold “refrigerators” (what we know as an ice box) for $11 and also screens to keep flies out of the house.

Cameras and Pool Tables Porter Refrigerators

Specialization was coming to Danvers, though, as one insurance agent’s ad noted: “The time has passed when the insurance agent was also bill poster, white washer and general utility man. Insurance is a business by itself.” One other specialist was Ferdinand A. Butler, who sold bicycles, though the ad refers to them by their nickname: “a wheel.” They were billed as efficient transportation, but also relaxing: “Drop that nerve tonic and buy a wheel, and we guarantee ‘that tired feeling’ will soon disappear.”

Outside of the Square, there was a coal yard on Holten Street, a greenhouse near Walnut Grove Cemetery, a man on Endicott Street who ran a sand and gravel business out of his house, a wagon maker on Andover Street, and mills and foundries in Tapleyville and Danversport. One such mill was Lummus & Parker’s grist mill on Water Street, which was standing at least as late as 1969. Another business outside the Square was the Calvin Putnam Lumber Company, noted in a previous article in this series, which was located at the Mill Pond.

Lummus and Parker

Calvin Putnam Lumber Company

What is most fascinating are the medical and dental ads. Dr. E. F. Carter, a dentist on Maple St., had an ad that noted “Electricity employed in desensitizing teeth in order to render the work of filling practically painless.” At this time laughing gas had been in use for decades, so apparently electricity was seen as the new innovative treatment. Fortunately, Novocain was developed only three years after this ad was published. Elsewhere, dentist Dr. Walter G. Fanning took out a full page ad that showed him in a cap and gown – proof that he actually had gone to school.

Dentist Electricity

Fanning Dentist ad

The turn of the century was prime-time for weird medical “cures,” and one Danvers “laboratory” on Oak Street marketed “Anti-Itis,” that was “antiseptic, hygroscopic, prophylactic, hydro-absorbent and anodyne” that “has the affinity to increase osmosis.” This strange miracle drug would supposedly treat “lung troubles, pneumonia, pleurisy, etc., tonsillitis, laryngitis, bronchitis, consumption, inflamed breasts, rheumatism, synovitis, dysmenorrhea, eczema, sprains, burns, boils, abscess, bruises, felons, enlarged glands, insect bites, milk leg, myalgia, neuralgia, neuritis, phlebitis, whitlow, wry neck, housemaids’ knee, sunburn, frost bites, corns, enlarged joints.”

Ant-Itis

Anti-Itis was advertised around New England in medical journals, and the product was a paste that was sold by the pound, which was to be applied hot to the skin. As if the modern reader were not already skeptical that Anti-Itis was effective at all, further digging through copyright records revealed that Anti-Itis was manufactured by the Standard Crayon Company!

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Sources

Official Program: Danvers’ 150th Anniversary, June 15, 16, 17, 1902. Danvers, Mass.: Danvers Mirror, 1902.

Sutherland, John P., and W.H. Watters, eds. The New England Medical Gazette: A Monthly Journal of Homeopathic Medicine. Vol. 43. Boston: Medical Gazette Publishing Company, 1908.

United States Patent Office. Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office. Vol. 315. Government Printing Office, 1923.

Gen. Israel Putnam House

On By Daniel A. GagnonIn Danvers History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Putnam House
(The Putnam House on Maple St. in Danvers, 2020. Author’s photo)

The c.1648 Putnam House, known for its connections to both the 1692 Salem Village Witch-Hunt and the American Revolution, is one of the most significant historic structures in Danvers. It is best known as the childhood home of Major General Israel Putnam, the American commander at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Born January 7, 1718 into a farming family, Israel Putnam was the 11th of 12 children. His father, Joseph Putnam, was an opponent of the 1692 Witch-Hunt, despite many members of the Putnam Family being among the leading accusers. Israel Putnam only received a minimal education, attending the local grammar school during the winters when the farming season was over. He married Hannah Pope in 1739, and continued living on his family farm for several years before he moved to present-day Brooklyn, CT.

IMG_2032
(DAR plaque on the Putnam House. Author’s photo)

Birth_Room,_Gen._Israel_Putnam POSTCARD
(Postcard showing the room in which Israel Putnam was born)

IMG_2040
(View from Route 1. Author’s photo)

Beginning in 1755, Putnam fought in the French and Indian War with the Connecticut militia. He entered as a private and rapidly rose through the ranks due to his bravery, and he served in the unit that was the precursor to the U.S. Army Rangers. Putnam fought in upper New York at Fort Ticonderoga, supervised the building of the major fort at Crown Point, NY, was captured and almost burned alive by French-allied Native Americans, commanded 1,000 colonial militiamen during the invasion of Spanish Cuba, and at the French and Indian War’s end he was a colonel who had been wounded 15 times.

Putnam returned to his farm in Connecticut where he lived and worked until April 19, 1775 when British soldiers advanced on Lexington and Concord and the American Revolution began. He was ploughing his farm when he heard about the battles, so he left his plough in the field immediately and departed to ask the governor for orders to go to Boston, and then departed for Massachusetts. The image of Putnam leaving his plough to join the fight is carved on one side of the Connecticut capitol building.

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(Putnam in his Continental Army uniform, printed in Hasbrouck, Israel Putnam)

When Putnam arrived, Boston was surrounded by Massachusetts militiamen, some of whom had confronted the British on the day of Lexington and Concord, like those from Danvers, as well as those from farther away towns who marched on the capital once they heard the news of the battles. The militiamen surrounded the British-occupied city which at that point was effectively an island, with only a sliver of land connecting it to the mainland.

Putnam, now a brigadier general in the Connecticut militia, set up headquarters in Cambridge while he oversaw the construction of defenses on that side of the Charles River. During this time, he received a message from British commander Gen. Thomas Gage in Boston – a friend from the French and Indian War – who offered him the position of major general in the British Army if he joined the Crown’s side against the American patriots. Putnam refused.

On the morning of June 17, 1775 British sailors on Royal Navy ships in the harbor awoke to see that during the previous night the Americans had moved onto the Charlestown peninsula and constructed fortifications there. The cannons aboard the British ships began firing on the Americans, starting the Battle of Bunker Hill, and soon after landing craft dropped off British soldiers to attack the Americans. Major General Joseph Warren was ill, and the commander of the Mass. militia refused command, so Putnam appears to have served as the American commanding officer of the battle. It was as the British soldiers approached the poorly-supplied militiamen on the hill that he reportedly ordered them to conserve ammunition until the British were close: “Don’t fire until you can see the whites of their eyes!”


(Bunker Hill. Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/pga.11535/)

At the Battle of Bunker Hill, Putnam fought among the troops, giving orders from the midst of battle. He carried a pistol that had been used by a British officer at Lexington – it was the gun that reportedly fired to signal for the British soldiers to open fire on the Americans on that fateful morning and therefore potentially the gun that fired the first shot of the Revolution.

The British soldiers attacked twice and were repelled. After receiving reinforcements they attacked a third time and pushed back the Americans, who were by then almost out of ammunition, ending the battle. Though, the Americans had inflicted heavy casualties onto the attacking British. When George Washington took command of the American forces the following month, Putnam was named a major general in the Continental Army, a position earned by his leadership at Bunker Hill and reputation from prior wars.

After Bunker Hill, Putnam fought at the Battle of Long Island – where he saved Washington’s army from destruction by covering the commander’s retreat – and at other battles in New York and Connecticut. At this time, his staff included his aide-de-camp Aaron Burr, future US vice president – and killer of Alexander Hamilton.

During the war, a captured British officer challenged Putnam to a duel. He accepted, and was given the choice of weapons. The next morning, the British officer saw Putnam sitting in a chair next to a barrel, the kind that was typically used to store gunpowder. Putnam invited him to sit in a chair on the other side of the barrel. Putnam inserted a fuse into the top of the barrel and lit it with his pipe, telling the British officer that they both had an equal chance of surviving. The fuse burned down to the end and the British officer jumped away in the nick of time – or so he thought, but it never exploded. It was actually a barrel of onions, and the British officer had mistakenly assumed it was gunpowder. Putnam considered that he won the duel.

Image result for general putnam gunpowder barrel
(Image of the onion barrel duel, printed in Hasbrouck, Israel Putnam)

Putnam’s military career ended in 1779 when he suffered a stroke. He returned to Danvers for the last time in 1786 to visit with his family and friends, and died on May 19, 1790. His legacy is seen in the various monuments and places named for him, including: Putnam Memorial State Park in Redding, CT that features an equestrian statue of him, his preserved Putnam Farm in Brooklyn, CT, a statue of him at the Connecticut State Capitol, the counties that bear his name in nine different states, several towns named for him, and the Putnam House in Danvers, as well as a motel named after him in the film My Cousin Vinny (1992) and a character in several versions of the videogame Assassin’s Creed.


(Image of Putnam in the Connecticut militia uniform he wore at Bunker Hill, from Assassin’s Creed)

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Sources:

Frothingham, Richard. History of the Siege of Boston, and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. 6th ed. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1903.

Hasbrouck, Louise Seymour. Israel Putnam (“Old Put”): A Story for Young People. New York: C. Appleton, 1916. http://archive.org/details/israelputnamoldp00zimm.

Hubbard, Robert Ernst. Major General Israel Putnam: Hero of the American Revolution. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2017.

Humphreys, David. An Essay on the Life of the Honorable Major General Israel Putnam: Addressed to the State Society of the Cincinnati in Connecticut. Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1788. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008586085.

Massachusetts Historical Commission. “General Israel Putnam House.” MACRIS. Accessed January 12, 2020. http://mhc-macris.net/Details.aspx?MhcId=DAN.51.

Tapley, Harriet S. Chronicles of Danvers (Old Salem Village), Massachusetts, 1632-1923. Danvers, Mass.: The Danvers Historical Society, 1923.

175 Years of the Maple Street Church

On By Daniel A. GagnonIn Danvers History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

(In the Herald-Citizen, 12/27/19)

Maple Street Church(Author’s photo, December 2019)

The Maple Street Church, originally known as the Third Orthodox Congregational Church of Danvers, was formed in 1844 and one year later a building was constructed on the site of its present church building on Maple Street. As the town grew, the church split off from the First Church of Danvers, and took the name Third Church because there was already a Second Congregational Church in the southern part of town that is now Peabody. This year marks the 175th anniversary of the Maple Street Church, an institution that has played a prominent role in the community for generations.

Danvers Plains, the area that includes Danvers Square, was quickly becoming the commercial center of town with the coming of the railroads, replacing the area surrounding the corner of Hobart and Centre Street that had served as the center of the community since it was Salem Village. This new church became a centerpiece of the new downtown, and the building hosted town meetings until town hall was built in 1855. During one of the town meetings held in the church in 1847, the people of Danvers voted on a resolution condemning the United States’ entry into the Mexican-American War, which was widely opposed in New England.

1887 Map, Danvers Square
(Danvers Square in 1887, Maple Street Church is at the top labelled as “orthodox church.” Sanborn Fire Insurance Map.)

In 1836 American settlers in Texas declared independence from Mexico, partly so that the settlers could own slaves – which was illegal in Mexico – and Texas was later annexed by the U.S. as a slave state. In 1846 President James K. Polk sent U.S. troops over the Mexican border to provoke an attack, which he then used as a cause for the Mexican-American War. Abolitionist New England viewed the conflict as a ploy to add territory to the southern US and thereby expand slavery.

Rev. Richard Tolman delivered a sermon to the Maple Street Church on July 4, 1847 denouncing the “miseries and crimes of the Mexican War,” and connected it to the expansion of slavery as he decried “the dreadful waste of treasure and blood… for the purpose of extending and perpetuating that system of oppression.” Many members of the church, including Deacon Samuel Fowler whose brick house still stands at the Port Corner, were known for their strong abolitionist beliefs.

Original Maple St Church
(The first church building, 1845-1850. Drawing by David S. Shattuck. Courtesy of the Danvers Archival Center, and printed in Martin, A Hearty Band of Firefighters.)

Though it quickly became the center of the Danvers community, the church suffered a terrible setback only five years after construction. At nine o’clock on the evening of July 10, 1850 two arsonists set fire to the building. The inferno was enormous, and threatened the whole neighborhood. The “General Putnam” engine company of volunteer firefighters from Danversport responded, its horse-drawn carriage galloping up High Street. When the firefighters arrived, men from the neighborhood joined them in combatting the flames. But, the church was lost.

During the fire, one man who volunteered to help the firefighters, William Duffy, had worked so hard that he won the respect of the fire company and returned to the engine house with them, where he was immediately voted in as a member of the volunteer company. Soon after, Duffy was arrested for being the accomplice of the man who set the fire that night.

Duffy was sentenced to life in the Charlestown State Prison, while the arsonist who turned state’s evidence apparently served no time. Well into his prison term, members of the church and the Danversport fire company captain lobbied to have him released early, finding it unjust that the man who had actually set the fire walked free while the accomplice was imprisoned. Duffy was released, and several years later enlisted to fight in the Civil War. He died fighting for the Union.

Despite the tragedy of the church burning down only years after it was established, a new church building was soon built and the congregation continued to grow quickly. When first established in 1844 the church counted only 42 people but by 1869 there were 200 members and by 1899 there were 751 members, with yet more attending services. That same year three of its members became some of the first western missionaries to visit China, which only recently began allowing western missions. The leaders of the church continued to be important in the wider community, and after pastor Rev. James Fletcher resigned from the Maple Street Church in 1864 he became the principal of Holten High School, the public high school in Danvers, from 1866-1871.

Maple St Church - Moynahan 1899
(The second church building, 1851-1944. Picture circa 1899, originally printed in Moynahan, Danvers, Massachusetts)

Fire struck the church again in the congregation’s hundredth anniversary year. Around 10pm on the night of May 20, 1944 one of the firefighters at the old central fire station looked out the window and saw flames reflected in a window across the intersection. A fire that began in a shed behind the church had quickly spread to the church building. The fire departments of seven towns fought the flames, fearing that they could easily spread to the neighboring gas station, the Maple Street Elementary School, and the railroad warehouse.

Maple St Church Burning
(The second church building burning in 1944. Courtesy of the Danvers Archival Center, and printed in Martin, A Hearty Band of Firefighters.)

Despite the multitude of firefighters and equipment, the fire raged through the grand wooden structure, and one hour after the fire was discovered the steeple collapsed into the church. In a sign of ecumenical and community-wide support for the church, at one point during the height of the inferno Fire Chief Joseph E. Kelley, Catholic priest Fr. Michael F. Collins, Superintendent of the Electric Light Dept. Leo Nimblett, Maple Street Church Deacon Carlton M. Stearns, and teenager Leland E. Martin Jr. (who later became a Danvers Fire Chief) ran into the basement of the burning church to rescue the congregation’s silver communion set. The church was rebuilt in 1948, the structure that stands today, and the rescued communion set is still used.

Maple St Church Ruins
(The burned out church building, as seen on the Sunday following the fire in 1944. Courtesy of the Danvers Archival Center, and printed in Martin, A Hearty Band of Firefighters.)

Maple St Church Clock and Rubble (1)
(The clock from the church’s steeple lying on a pile of debris in the nave of the church. Courtesy of the Danvers Archival Center, and printed in Martin, A Hearty Band of Firefighters.)

At its 175th anniversary, the Maple Street Church’s congregation numbers approximately 375 people and the church’s services are broadcast on Danvers Community Access Television (DCAT). In addition to mission trips, the church sponsors Boy Scout Troop 16, is active in the Danvers Interfaith Partnership, and organizes numerous charitable endeavors.
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Sources:

Archer, Charles F. W. “Danvers.” In Standard History of Essex County, Massachusetts. Boston: C. F. Jewett and Company, 1878.

Hanson, J. W. History of the Town of Danvers from Its First Settlement to the Year 1848. Danvers: J.W. Hanson, 1848.

Hines, Ezra D., and W. J. C. Kenney. “Danvers Fires and Fire Companies.” The Historical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society 5 (1917): 84–85.

“Late Sentence for Incendiarism.” Gallipolis Journal. November 7, 1850. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038121/1850-11-07/ed-1/seq-3/.

Maple Street Church. “The InSpire.” Danvers: Maple Street Church, December 2019. https://www.maplestreetchurch.org/the-inspire.

Martin Jr., Leland E. A Hearty Band of Firefighters: The Illustrated History of the Danvers Fire Department. Edited by Richard P. Zollo. Danvers: The Danvers Historical Society, 1997.

“Old Danvers Church Destroyed by Fire With $100,000 Loss.” Daily Boston Globe, May 21, 1944.

Proceedings at the Celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the First Parish at Salem Village Now Danvers. Boston: Congregational Publishing Society, 1874.

Putnam, A.P. “Danvers People and Their Homes.” Historical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society 5 (1917): 74–83.

Sanborn Map Company. “Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Danvers, Essex County, Massachusetts.” Danvers, Mass., November 1887. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn03714_001/.

“Summary.” The Advent Herald. November 2, 1850. Adventist Digital Library.

Tapley, Charles Sutherland. “The One Hundredth Anniversary of the Maple Street Church.” The Historical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society 33 (1945): 16–21.

Tapley, Harriet S. Chronicles of Danvers (Old Salem Village), Massachusetts, 1632-1923. Danvers, Mass.: The Danvers Historical Society, 1923.

Tolman, Richard. Evil Tendencies of the Present Crisis: A Discourse, Delivered July 4, 1847. Danvers: The Danvers Courier, 1847. https://archive.org/details/eviltendenciesof00tolm/page/n4.

Journal Article Published – “Skeletons in the Closet: How the Actions of the Salem Witch Trials Victims’ Families in 1692 Affected Later Memorialization.”

On By Daniel A. GagnonIn 1692 Witch Trials, Danvers History, Uncategorized2 Comments

My article, “Skeletons in the Closet,” appeared in this fall’s issue of the New England Journal of History:

Skeletons in the Closet – Gagnon

Gagnon, Daniel A. “Skeletons in the Closet: How the Actions of the Salem Witch Trials Victims’ Families in 1692 Affected Later Memorialization.” The New England Journal of History 75/76, no. 2/1 (Spring/Fall 2019): 32–73.

 

The Salem Village Parsonage

On By Daniel A. GagnonIn 1692 Witch Trials, Danvers History, Uncategorized4 Comments

(In the Herald-Citizen, 11/15/2019)

Parsonage Foundation - Dan Gagnon
(The parsonage foundation. Author’s photo).

During the winter of 1691-1692, the house grew cold as the stockpile of wood dwindled and snow piled up outside. The Salem Village minister, Rev. Samuel Parris was not being paid as promised. Worse, his claim of ownership to the parsonage, the house in which he and his family lived while he was minister of the church in Salem Village (present-day Danvers), was disputed. The minister and his family were very anxious about their future.

The stuffy air inside the house was punctuated by a shriek, then two, before the scraping of furniture on the wooden floor was heard as Betty Parris, the minister’s daughter, crawled under tables and chairs, still screaming. Soon, Rev. Parris’ niece Abigail Williams joined in too. Something frightening was happening in Salem Village.

Parris - Mass Historical
(The only known image of Rev. Samuel Parris, Massachusetts Historical Society: http://www.masshist.org/database/3732).

The Salem Village parsonage was ground zero for the 1692 Salem Village Witch-Hunt, during which almost 200 innocent people were accused of witchcraft – the impossible crime of signing a contract with the Devil in return for supernatural powers. Nineteen were hanged, one was pressed to death, and at least five died in jail. The chaos began with the two girls in the minister’s household having so-called “fits,” during which they screamed, contorted, and claimed that they were being attacked by specters – ghostly images of the alleged witches. Not long after these fits began in the parsonage, young women, middle-aged women, and adult men across Salem Village began acting similarly, and Parris’ Caribbean slave Tituba was the first accused of witchcraft.

Several years prior to the witch-hunt, Rev. Parris was hired as the minister in Salem Village, in the hope that he could calm a community that had fought contentiously with its previous ministers – disputes that grew serious enough to involve the courts, the Massachusetts legislature, and surrounding churches.

Though, calm was elusive. Several Villagers showed their disapproval of the new minister by withholding their taxes, which were used to pay his salary. For his part, Parris undermined the calm by apparently attempting to change the terms of his contract only months after being hired. As was typical, he was given the use of the 1681 parsonage building while he served as minister, though it remained owned by the community.

But, Parris wanted ownership of the house. A merchant in Boston and landholder in Barbados prior to coming to Salem Village, he sought the economic security that came with land ownership. His supporters organized either a secret town meeting, or at least a very poorly-attended one, that voted to give Parris ownership of the parsonage house. When this deception was revealed in the months before the witch-hunt, it caused anger across Salem Village.

During the witch-hunt, Parris testified against several of the innocent accused including Rebecca Nurse, whose family farm remains on Pine St. in Danvers. After the witch-hunt, Nurse’s family fought to remove Parris as the Village minister due to his role in the witch-hunt. The family wrote of Parris in a later court document, “Mr. Parris, by these practices and principles, has been the beginner and procurer of the sorest afflictions, not of this village only, but to this whole country, that ever did befall them.” Parris was forced out in 1697 finally ending his controversial tenure as minister. Prior to his departure, his wife Elizabeth passed away and was buried in what is now the Wadsworth Cemetery on Summer St.

IMG_1838
(Photograph of Elizabeth Parris’ headstone, 2019. Author’s photo).

Subsequent Village ministers lived in the parsonage for almost a century. When Rev. Peter Clark was the minister during the mid-1700s, his young neighbor Samuel Holten lived with the minister and his family in the parsonage so that he could be tutored by Clark. Holten went on to become a judge, member of the Continental Congress, and signer of the Articles of Confederation. He served temporarily as President of Congress under the Articles and later became a member of the U.S. Congress after the Constitution was ratified.

The original 1681 parsonage was torn down in 1784, with a newer section of the house moved to a different location. Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth replaced it with a grand new Georgian house for the ministry, what is today 73 Centre St. Meanwhile, the original parsonage site was abandoned, the cellar holes were filled in, and it was used as a field for grazing horses. Over time, the exact location of the site was lost to history.

Cousins 1891 Parsonage JPEG - Digital Commonwealth
(A photograph from 1891 of what was believed to be the area of the 1681 parsonage site. Frank Cousins, Danvers Site of Reverend Samuel Parris House, 1891, Frank Cousins Collection of Glass Plate Negatives. Courtesy of Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA).

Cousins - Wadsworth House 73 Centre
(The new 1784 Parsonage, 73 Centre St., Danvers as seen c. 1891. Frank Cousins, Danvers, Centre Street, Wadsworth house, c.1891, Frank Cousins Collection of Glass Plate Negatives, 606. Courtesy of Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA).

It was not until the early 1970s that then-Curator of the Danvers Historical Society Richard B. Trask, along with members of the Society, the town Historical Commission, and other interested locals began a search for the parsonage site. After using the 17th century Salem Village Record Book, along with 18th century maps, the probable site was located in the yard of Alfred Hutchinson, a local teacher. Partnering with archaeologist Roland Wells Robbins, whose prior work included Thomas Jefferson’s birthplace, Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond, and the Saugus Iron Works, the site was investigated and stone foundations were found.

Hutchinson permitted the excavation of this section of his yard, and about a dozen volunteers worked tirelessly on the site. As the stone foundation was uncovered, more than 30,000 artifacts were discovered, including 17th and 18th century coins, cutlery, pipe bowls from the 1660s, a metal plate bearing the initials of Samuel and Elizabeth Parris, and many wine bottle fragments, some of which had Parris’ initials on them.

The more that was found, the greater the interest and the need for volunteers. The original volunteers were joined in Hutchinson’s backyard by hundreds of locals who helped sift, dig, and sort found items.  This excavation became a community effort that yielded significant finds from one of the most important sites in colonial American history.

Today, the site is town-owned and open to the public via a cart path next to 67 Centre St. Possibly the most photographed site in Danvers, the parsonage cellars are featured in many history books, and frequently appear on television programs about the witch-hunt.

IMG_0503
(Sign at 67 Centre St.)

IMG_0522
(Path from the parsonage site to the street).

IMG_0506IMG_0516

Parsonage Foundation - Dan Gagnon

 

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Sources

Boyer, Paul, and Stephen Nissenbaum, eds. Salem Village Witchcraft: A Documentary Record of Local Conflict in Colonial New England. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993.

First Church of Danvers Congregational. Church Record Book Belonging to Salem Village, 1689-1845.

Gragg, Larry. A Quest for Security: The Life of Samuel Parris, 1653-1720. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.

McKern, Sharon S. “They’re Digging up Witch Lore in Salem.” Science Digest, May 1971.

Salem Village. “A Book of Record of the Severall Publique Transactions of the Inhabitants of Salem Village Vulgarly Called The Farmes.” Edited by Harriet S. Tapley. Historical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society 13 (1925): 91–122; 14 (1926): 65-99; 16 (1928): 60-80.

Trask, Richard B. “History of the Salem Village Church Record Book.” Danvers Archival Center at the Peabody Institute Library, September 15, 2015. https://www.danverslibrary.org/archive/village-church-record-book/.

Trask, Richard B. “Raising the Devil.” Yankee Magazine, May 1972.

The “Folly” in Folly Hill

On By Daniel A. GagnonIn Danvers History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

(In the Danvers Herald, 10/4/19)

Browne Hall
(Image of Browne Hall reprinted in Harriet S. Tapley, Chronicles of Danvers (Old Salem Village), Massachusetts, 1632-1923 (Danvers, Mass.: The Danvers Historical Society, 1923).

In 1740 a large mansion was built atop Leach’s Hill, a home whose construction was deemed a folly and altered the name of the hill itself. Today featuring the large water tanks towering above Route 128, the hill lost its former glory due to one of the worst natural disasters in New England history.

In those days, from the summit of the hill one could see Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire, the Blue Hills in Milton, and the hills of Chelmsford. Today the Boston skyline remains visible on the southern horizon, as is the ocean to the east, and the old Danvers State Hospital perched atop Hathorne Hill to the west. Folly Hill is visible from all across the north shore, and attracted local explorers and wanderers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, who as a young man in the early 1800s explored the hilltop and ruins of “Browne’s Folly.”

Folly Hill looking south
(Looking south from Folly Hill, September 2019. Danversport Yacht Club and Sandy Beach in the foreground, and the Boston skyline in the background. Author’s photo.)

William Browne, a wealthy Salem merchant, representative in the Massachusetts legislature, and member of the Governor’s Council, purchased the hill for the location of a fine country estate. In 1740 he built “Browne Hall,” an 80-foot long mansion that consisted of two wings connected by a central entrance hall. The house was extravagantly furnished and built in a neoclassical style, with columns around the main doors and the floors painted to look like a mosaic.

One visitor noted that the entrance hall had an oval gallery with a fine railing above the ballroom, and a large dome for the roof. The mansion had four main entrances – one facing north, east, south, and west – and if all of the doors were propped open, one could stand in the center under the dome and see outside from all four directions. An opulent palace for a wealthy man, this house on the summit of the hill was visible for miles – but its precarious location atop the hill was its downfall.

At 4:30am on November 18, 1755, people across Massachusetts and the Atlantic coast suddenly awoke. The ground rumbled for four and a half minutes, walls shook, and chimneys crumbled as a powerful earthquake struck the area. The quake’s epicenter was off Cape Ann, but its effects were felt as far away as Nova Scotia and South Carolina. Clocks stopped in Boston and more than 1,500 chimneys crumbled, while in New Haven the ground rose and fell like waves on the ocean. Out on the actual sea, sailors 200 miles from the coast felt the rumbling and feared that their ship had run aground. The earthquake was the strongest ever felt in Massachusetts – likely between a 6.0 and 6.3 if measured on the modern Richter scale – and may have caused a tsunami as far away as the Caribbean.

Once the tremors ceased, the inside of Browne Hall was littered with broken glass and it was feared that part of the structure was compromised. Browne no longer considered the home safe to live in due to the damage, which was exacerbated by the house’s location on the peak of the hill. Abandoning this prominent yet precarious location, Browne moved part of the mansion to the corner of Liberty and Conant Streets in Danvers. William Browne passed away eight years after the earthquake and was buried in Salem’s Charter St. Cemetery, leaving the remnants of his once-glorious estate in Danvers to the next generation.

The remaining part of the house, now at its much lower location, was inherited by Browne’s nephew and heir. But, his nephew was a Loyalist during the Revolution and so all of his property was confiscated, including the remnants of Browne Hall. Browne’s nephew returned to England during the Revolution and later became the Royal Governor of Bermuda. The part of the house at the end of Liberty Street was left abandoned, with all of the home’s furnishings still within.

This unkempt building became known as a haunted house, and local children dared one another to enter. Nathaniel Hawthorne recounts the story of several boys hesitantly exploring the deserted mansion, believed to be the home of some evil spirit. On one adventure, they opened a door only to have specters of the home’s former owners lurch out of the closet at them as they turned tail and fled. These images were later discovered to be merely Browne family portraits tumbling off a shelf, rather than ghosts of the home’s former inhabitants.

Browne Hall Portraits
(Two of the Browne family portraits that were kept in Brown Hall. Reprinted in Ezra D. Hines, “Brown Hill and Some History Connected With It,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 32 (1896): 201–36).

The remnants of Browne Hall were later sold off in sections. The central hall became part of the Danvers Hotel, which was located where the savings bank building is now at one corner of Danvers Square.  It was later relocated yet again across the Square, but it burned in a large fire that destroyed the whole area in 1845.

After the house was removed, the hill – by now renamed “Folly Hill” due to Browne’s folly of building such a large house at the pinnacle of the hill – remained empty during the following decades. Hawthorne enjoyed taking walks to the open land around Salem, and frequently took a route that led him across the Salem-Beverly Bridge, down Bridge Street and Elliott Street past the hill, and then down Liberty Street back to Salem. He wrote about the green cart path that led to the top of Folly Hill, the overgrown cellar hole of the house, and the marvelous view of the surrounding towns from the summit.

Hawthorne, in a letter to his cousin, described the remains of Browne Hall as a connection to a prior glorious age before the Revolution and the uncertainty that followed. He wrote, “The ancient site of this proud mansion may still be traced upon the summit of the Hill… there I have sometimes sat and tried to rebuild, in my imagination, the stately house, or to fancy what splendid show it must have been even so far off as in the streets of Salem, when the old proprietor illuminated his many windows to celebrate the King’s birthday.”

Hawthorne Letter 1 - EIHC 32 - 0246

Hawthorne letter 2 - EIHC 32 - 0247
(Image of part of Hawthorne’s letter describing Folly Hill, reprinted in Ezra D. Hines, “Brown Hill and Some History Connected With It,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 32 (1896): 201–36).

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Sources

Ebel, John E. “Massachusetts Historical Society: The Cape Ann Earthquake of November 1755.” Massachusetts Historial Society, November 2005. http://www.masshist.org/object-of-the-month/objects/the-cape-ann-earthquake-of-november-1755-2005-11-01.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Browne’s Folly.” In The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 12:131–35. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1878. https://books.google.com/books?id=Dx5EAAAAYAAJ&dq=hawthorne+Browne%27s+folly&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

Hines, Ezra D. “Brown Hill and Some History Connected With It.” Essex Institute Historical Collections 32 (1896): 201–36.

Tapley, Harriet S. Chronicles of Danvers (Old Salem Village), Massachusetts, 1632-1923. Danvers, Mass.: The Danvers Historical Society, 1923.