Witch Child: Sorceress Part 18

Jordan determined to examine the site after amateur archaeologists in the 1970s found what they believed to be the remains of a meeting house. The foundations of this building have since been excavated. Most of the finds are European in origin and date from the Colonial period. These include: clay pipe bowl and stem pieces, rusted keys and hinges, a belt buckle, pottery, gla.s.s and lead musket b.a.l.l.s. But in an interesting development, stone materials incorporated into the building have been tentatively identified as being of Native American origin. Other finds dating from the Late Woodland period include sh.e.l.l and midden remains, beads and arrowheads.

Funding has been allocated for this coming summer, much to the relief of Site Director Ed Jordan and his team. Ed comments, 'This is an exciting opportunity to examine continuity of use on one particular site. There is still a lot of work to do. To fully explore the site could take years.'

Note 4. Jonah and Martha Morse Married 1662. Settled in Boston. Jonah set up as an apothecary in what is now the North End, choosing an advantageous spot on an important thoroughfare between the Old Mill Cove and the Town Dock.

Land-owners.h.i.+p sources show he bought a property which combined house and shop, with a back yard where he probably planted a physick garden.

Doc.u.ments: Drugs and Medicines Mr Jonah Morse has lately received a general a.s.sortment of Drugs and Medicines of the best quality which he sells wholesale and retail from his shop on the way from Cove to Cove Also Various Chymical Tinctures Newlie arrived from England g Broadsheet advertis.e.m.e.nt, owned by Boston Historical Society. The Society also possesses a small pamphlet, Certain Receipts: g For Coughs Take one ounce of meadow cabbage, one ounce of lobelia, half an ounce of indian turnip, one fourth ounce of blood root, handful of h.o.a.rhound and the same of coltsfoot. Add the weight of the whole of purified honey, pulverise the ingredients and mix them up and let the patient take what the stomach can bear. Continue until well.

g For Jaundice Take equal parts of white snake root, burdock, narrow dock, dandelion and coweslip heads, steep them together and drink until well. This cure is certain.

Note the combination of plants of English origin coltsfoot, dandelion, cowslip and those native to America: snake root, white and black, skunk cabbage, indian turnip.

The will of Jonah Morse, dated 1672, included:.

Sundry jars.

1 copper alembic 1 gla.s.s alembic.

1 pottery alembic 2 pestle & mortar (one great of stone, one small of bra.s.se).

1 scales.

1 cabinete and contents.

to my wife, Martha (or profite from the sale of such).

Martha continued to live and trade in a small way until her own death in 1674. The will of Martha Morse included: '2 ashwood stools, 5 oak chaires (one carved very fair), one great oak table, one greate oakwood chest, one fireside settle, a bed, a silver bowl, spoones and candlesticke' to Tobias Morse. 'My Best Red Kersey Petticoate, My Sad Grey kersey Wascote, my white Holland App.r.o.n with a small lace at the bottom' to Mistress Humphries, neighbour. To Rebekah Morse: 'My black silk neck cloath and 2 yards of lace and Sixe yards of Redd Cloth, A wooden boxe carved on top and quilte contained within it.'

Jonah and Martha Morse are buried together in the Copp's Hill Burying Ground.

Note 5. Rivers-Morse From the Rivers/Morse private family papers.

Letters between Sarah Rivers and Rebekah Morse.

July 1675.

My dear daughter, I do heartily enjoin you to come to us. War has broken out between settler and Indian. The trouble lies to the south, to be sure, but still we live in very great fear that it will spread to the tribes who live hereabout, despite their seeming friendliness.

Your loving mother, Sarah Rivers.

August 1675.

My dear daughter, The news we hear serves to feed my fear for you. Quahog [present-day Brookfield] has been laid waste and all are readying themselves for further attacks. John, Joseph and Joshua have been called to join the muster. Only Noah is with me now. Whatever he may think, he is too young to fight. Susannah and Rachel are with me here, their husbands being away, and I wish you would come to me too. Hadley is by no means safe from attack, but safer than where you are now. I worry so about you and the little ones.

Joseph is to accompany a troop that is being sent to Poc.u.mtuck to strengthen the garrison. If all stays quiet, his plan is to escort you and your children back to Hadley. I do entreat you to allow him to do this.

Your loving mother, Sarah Rivers.

August 1675.

My dear mother, I trust this letter finds you well and safe still. I am grateful for your concern for me, and well know the danger we stand in here. Others are leaving for Hadley and Hatfield, and I trust my children to your care.

Joseph says he will see them safely to you before he rejoins his company. I own my heart ached to see him again, and will ache afresh to see him go, my little ones with him, but I honour my vows to Tobias. My place is with him. He will not leave all he has built here and besides, there is much work to do, what with the beasts to tend and harvest coming. He cannot do it all alone, and if I do not stay to help him, we will have nothing for the coming year. He will not leave the place empty, for then the Indians will sack and burn it for sure.

With Joseph and the children, I send also my box with its precious contents. I earnestly pray to G.o.d that all arrive safe.

I remain ever your obedient & loving daughter, Rebekah Morse.

September 1675.

My dearest mother, I received your letter and thank G.o.d that Joseph brought the children to you safe and well.

I write this in haste. We are in desperate straits here. Many have crowded in to our house, it being the strongest hereabouts. We have come under attack. The a.s.sault was repelled, but we fear another. We were set to leave for the greater safety of Poc.u.mtuck but that is no longer possible. We fear that the enemy is all about and it would be as dangerous for me to leave as to stay. So I do what I can. I will load muskets and fire them if need be. Meanwhile I provide sustenance, and tear sheets into bandages in readiness for the attack that all expect hourly.

The attack came at dawn. A small group, part of a larger party, fell upon us, hoping to find us sleeping no doubt, but we maintain a constant lookout. The Indians were few in number and easily repulsed, although we lost two men: one to a musket ball to the head; the other with an arrow through the throat as he tried to regain the house. Several others were wounded, although only slightly. They lost men also. Four bodies lay strewn about after the attack.

I went to see what help I could give, but all were dead. Among them a man who I took to be their chiefest warrior. I name him such by the stature of his person and by the paint he wore upon his face and by a fine gorget he wore at his throat, woven of white and purple wampum beads, interspersed with discs of silver and beaten copper. One of our men bent to rip this from him and raised his sword as if to hack off his head, declaring, 'This must be Philip himself!'

I held the man's arm and begged him to desist. He was disposed to argue with me, saying that he 'would have his head for that is what the Indians do to our dead', but I bid him stay his hand and ordered the bodies removed to the edge of the forest.

We expected another attack but it did not come. The Indians appeared merely in order to remove their dead. Then they melted back into the forest and we have not seen them since.

We know not whether they are still lurking there, but we must take our chance. Tobias does not think we could survive if they return and attack in any numbers. We leave today for Poc.u.mtuck. Hoping to be safer there. From whence this will be dispatched onwards.

I do not look for the worst to come to pa.s.s, but I have given thought to what I wish to happen if it does. My intentions are thus: I hope and trust that you will care for my children. Such of my goods as survive should be kept for them. In particular, the box that Joseph conveyed is for Mary Sarah, to be kept for her and handed over on the occasion of her marriage. It and its contents are to be preserved by her, to be pa.s.sed on to her daughter, and her daughter after, and, if she has none, to the wife of her eldest son. Tell her what you will of the history of the quilt, but tell her, and this most strongly, that it should not be used for everyday purpose. It should serve, as it served me, as cover and comfort to mother and newborn child.

If it is G.o.d's will, then we will meet again.

Until then, I trust in his Great Goodness and remain ever your loving daughter, Rebekah.

Extract from Alison Ellman's notes on Rebekah Morse Rebekah survived, although the settlement she left did not. Poc.u.mtuck stood alone, the last of the frontier outposts. The other towns around it lay deserted, burnt and wasted. The women and children were evacuated, Rebekah with them, leaving only the men behind to stay and fight. After a vicious skirmish at a place known ever after as b.l.o.o.d.y Brook, Poc.u.mtuck was abandoned, its houses burnt, its crops taken. It became a town 'inhabited by owls'.

Tobias survived to join his wife and children in the comparative safety of Hadley. The loss of home, farm and business must have been a bitter blow to this ambitious young man, but at least he was alive and he meant to build again.

Rebekah and Tobias eventually went back with others to rebuild their devastated town. Somewhere in the process it was renamed Deerfield. The town was not without future troubles, but the Morse family stayed on and prospered. Some of them live there still.

Note 6. Quilt.

From the Rivers/Morse quilt provenance. Extract from: Sewing Serendipity, 1916.

Eveline Travers Harris adds to our occasional series 'Old Quilts of New England' with a fascinating family tale about an extremely unusual quilt from her very fine collection.

The Morse quilt.

It may not be much to look at, being all of one colour and a drab one at that, but it is not colour or pattern, cleverness of working or intricacy of st.i.tching, that makes the Morse quilt (as we call it) something special. Its age does that, and what it means to us. It has been in our family for ever, and I do mean ever. It was not manufactured here in the United States or the Colonies, as it would have been back then. The quilt started life in England, so family tradition tells us, some time in the seventeenth century, so it is of very great antiquity.

It came here with one of the first families. Some say a Morse brought it with them, some say a Rivers, and some say that it originally belonged to someone else entirely, but one thing we do know for sure. It has been in the family ever since that time, and is always pa.s.sed down on the female side. It has seen every conceivable threat and danger, Indian wars and rebellion, not to mention the War of Independence and the Civil War, and survived them all, just as our family has.

So it means a lot to us, not least in the family traditions that go back to those 'first times'. It is said that Rebekah Rivers Morse (16431714) of Deerfield was the first owner. When she gave it to her daughter Mary Sarah on the occasion of the girl's marriage, it was with the instruction that the quilt was to be pa.s.sed on to her daughter, and so on. If there was no daughter, then the quilt was to go the wife of the eldest son. Curiously nearly all of the mothers had daughters, right down to this current generation.

The quilt was never used for its original mundane purpose, right from the start it was treasured. It was kept in its original box, and only brought out at the birth of a child, when it was spread over mother and offspring in the belief that it would protect both of them in those first few perilous weeks, childbirth being a risky business for both mother and babe until relatively recent times. Now, what with antiseptics and anaesthetics, it might be said that we are no longer in need of the quilt's protection and many might feel inclined to dismiss the tradition as mere superst.i.tion. To them I would reply that no baby ever died who had the quilt spread over it, all of them thrived, and no mother lost her life to the fevers that claimed so many after the birth of a child.

I certainly intend to carry on the family tradition. I look forward to the day when I can give this wonderful quilt to my daughter, Etta May, on the occasion of her marriage.

Eveline Travers Harris, September 17th, 1916 g Eveline Travers Harris died 1981. Quilt bought by J. W. Holden 1985. On his death (1996) it became part of the Holden Collection at the Holden Foundation Museum.

Note 7. Jack Gill Transcript of interview with Richard Gill of Nantucket 4/6/99.

AE: I'm interested in a man called Jack Gill. Are you any relation?

RG: Sure am. Been Gills on this island since pretty near the time of first settlement. I'm Richard Gill. Jack'd be my great-great-and-some-grandfather going way back. [Pause] Well, now. Old Jack Gill. Jack Gill was from off island. He weren't first family. But he came pretty near when the colony started. From Long Island, so they say, but he'd been up and down the eastern seaboard from Nova Scotia to Virginia, to the West Indies and back again.

He'd gotten together a goodly sum in the process, but he couldn't rest, couldn't settle, it was like he was looking for something, someone. Then his s.h.i.+p called here, caught in a storm she was, running for shelter. He came ash.o.r.e and met up with an island girl. A pretty thing by all accounts, eyes as grey as a winter sea and hair as gold as the sands. Maybe he's ready to stop his roving, maybe he left off looking, but anyways, he fell in love and she fell in love right back.

Now she was first family, and Quaker over that, so when she married him, she married out, that's what we call it. He didn't turn Quaker, but he never left the island again.

AE: So what did he do?

RG: He didn't want to do trading no more, so he turns to whaling. There was whaling, even back then, carried on in a small way compared with what came later. The boats operated from the sh.o.r.e. Lookouts were set along the coast and when a whale was sighted a crew would go out in pursuit.

AE: What kinds of whales were they hunting?

RG: Right whales, mostly. Called that because they was the right kind to kill. They came past every autumn migrating to their breeding grounds in the south. Still do, matter of fact, what's left of 'em, that is. Well, old Jack, he goes along with this for a while, but he has bigger ideas. He takes his craft farther and farther out into the deep ocean, way off sh.o.r.e, out of sight of land. Here he catches him a sperm whale, probably by accident first time round. Now sperm-whale oil is better quality than right whale oil. In particular the oil in its head, they call it the case, is light and pure and worth a whole lot more. That's what Jack is after. He dreams of having a fleet of sloops these'd be judged small by later standards, thirty, forty tons, but they'd be capable of going to the deep waters. He has big plans, but he's getting to be an old man. He can't do it himself no more. He can't manage the steering oar or handle the killing lance. He's too old to go to sea.

[Pause].

AE: Too old to go to sea?

RG: What I said, be in his sixties by this time.

[Pause].

AE: OK. So, so how did he die, then?

RG: Old Jack? He died in his bed.

AE: Huh?

RG: What's wrong with that?

AE: Nothing. Go on. Go on with his story.

RG: He hands the business on to his son Ichabod. He will take the sloops out to the deep ocean where Jack dreamed to go. There he'll hunt the great sperm whales.

Now these beasts are a different prospect from the right whales they've been used to hunting. These are bigger, grander; more valuable, yeah, but a whole lot faster and harder to catch. And mean. You read Moby d.i.c.k? They've been known to stove a s.h.i.+p.

[Pause]

RG: Anyways. Where was I?

AE: Ichabod?

RG: Oh, yeah. Ichabod was a Quaker, like his mother had been before she 'married out'. He joined the Meeting, something Jack never did, and he married into one of the island's Quaker families. He was as ambitious as his father, but he lacked Jack's spirit of adventure, his wayward streak. Ichabod left nothing to chance. He was as strict as they come and chance is a thing Quakers don't have no truck with. No truck with superst.i.tion either, so before the voyage, when the old man pressed his lucky piece into his hand, Ichabod gave it right back, saying he got no need for it.

AE: This lucky piece? What was it?

RG: Half a silver coin, given to Jack by the captain of some s.h.i.+p he served on. Jack swore by it all his life, never went to sea without it.

AE: What happened to the other half?

RG: Never would say. My guess was he gave it to a sweetheart it's what sailors did in them days. Anyways, Ichabod sails out without the lucky piece and he doesn't come back. His whale boat was stove, the whole crew lost. When the sad news came back, his only son dead like that, the old man never got over it. He took to his bed and his soul went out on the very next tide. They found him cold in the morning, his fist closed tight around that half a silver s.h.i.+lling.

AE: So it was Ichabod who was killed by the whale, not Jack at all?.

RG: Yeah. That's what I been telling ya.

Note 8. Ephraim Carlton.

Bra.s.s plaque set into stone by the side of the Missouri River:.

This plaque is dedicated to the memory of voyageurs Ephraim Carlton, Jean Dupre, and Tonsa their native guide, who pa.s.sed this spot in February 1695 and were among the first explorers to open the way for the exploration and subsequent settlement of the vast American continent.

Additional information on Mary's mother E.G.

Provisionally identified as Elinor Garfield, wife of Colonel Garfield, a commander in Cromwell's army and signatory to Charles I's death warrant.

Contemporary sources describe Elinor as a woman of exceptional intelligence, courage and resourcefulness, 'above the ordinary pitch of women'. She served the Commonwealth cause with great loyalty and stuck with her husband through great adversity, saving him from execution when the monarchy was restored.