USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Salem > Short story of three centuries of Salem : 1626-1926 > Part 6
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The heart of the liberty loving thrills a little today thinking of Wat Tyler at the head of one hundred thou- sand peasants placing his hand on his dagger at the approach of an ignoble and treacherous English king who had advanced to meet him in conference. The his- torian says of Tyler's Rebellion that it was "a newly awakened desire for personal liberty" and that "social and political questions involved, lift it into a plane of grave importance; it was a revolt founded on social dis- tinction, an antagonism between capital and labor that in one form or another has continued unabated to this day".
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To concentrate power, to bring material profits and comforts and privileges within the control and enjoy- ment of the limited number, to enable the lords, as was said in Tyler's time, "to spend in their pride what the people gained for them by their toil", men have op- pressed their brothers, denied them education, enslaved them and taxed them unjustly; the spirit of greed and power and selfishness led men to master and destroy, and, when they were glutted with wealth and ease, they combined, and conspired against, and overawed the pro- testing but defenseless many. This states a condition of social injustice which may vary in degree and exist under any form of government. It existed in exagger- ated form in the days of serfdom and men died bravely to change this order of things. It existed, but less acutely of course, in the days of our Declaration of Independence but we attacked it then with vigorous moral and intel- lectual as well as physical force, and we charged that when a prince becomes a tyrant he is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Timothy Pickering was not a Wat Tyler though he had all the spirit and courage of that leader. Education and enlightenment supplemented patriotic spirit and courage. It has been said, "in the more enlightened classes, individuals now and then rise up who, through a singular force and elevation of soul, obtain a sway over men's minds to which no limit can be prescribed. They speak with a voice which is heard by distant na- tions and which goes down to future ages. Their names are repeated with veneration by millions, and millions read in their lives and writings a quickening testimony to the greatness of the mind, to its moral strength, to the realities of disinterested virtue; and these men are the true sovereigns of the earth". Such a man was Timothy Pickering, whose noble utterance to Gage we
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recall today, as well as his great service to his city and country. His answer to Gage gave a new impulse to justice and liberty among his fellow citizens and strengthened them, responsive enough though they were, to suffer and die in the cause they had undertaken.
But this war was not won by our leaders; our people in a very true sense were the victors. Channing in re- viewing the question says the Revolution prospered "because it was begun and was conducted under the auspices of private and public virtue ; our liberty did not come to us by accident, nor was it the gift of a few leaders ; its seeds were plentifully sown in the minds of the whole people. It was rooted in the conscience and reason of the nation. It was the growth of deliberate convictions and generous principles liberally diffused. The country was all heart. The living principle per- vaded the community and every village added strength to the solemn purpose of being free. There was too much greatness in the American people to admit the overshadowing greatness of leaders. Washington indeed conferred on us great blessings but Washington was not a hero in the common sense of that word. We never spoke of him as the French did of Bonaparte, never talked of his eagle-eyed, irresistible, genius, as if this were to work out our safety. We felt that under God we were to be free through our own courage, energy and wisdom under the animating and guiding influences of this great and good mind. Washington served us chiefly by his sublime moral qualities. To him belonged the proud distinction of being the leader in a Revolution without awakening one doubt or solicitude as to the spotless purity of his purpose. His was the glory of being the brightest manifestation of the spirit which
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reigned in his country and in this way he became a source of energy, a bond of union, the center of an en- lightened people's confidence".
Liberty having been acquired for us, our concern now is in the question of its preservation. A report of the committee of the American Bar Association said "the government of the United States can endure only through a reasonable amount of thought and time devoted to its requirements by citizens who love it and wish to have it preserved in all its force and integrity".
The thought required of our citizens to preserve government implies a knowledge and appreciation of the meaning of the conditions surrounding us. The Peace Congress of Lucerne (1905) spoke of "modern progress binding together millions of the most diverse interests" and of the "stream of democracy, or what it would be more proper to call the aspirations of the masses of the people after happiness, rising continually in an immense, irresistable flood". To us many of the aspiring millions have and will come to swell the rising stream of democ- racy here in this first free land. To bend them, and hold ourselves, to the national purpose, defined by the American Bar Association as giving "to all the people a chance to live a rounded, intelligent, complete life", the Christian spirit and the lofty patriotism expressed by Pickering and our Revolutionary leaders, may well guide us.
Tyler's Rebellion, besides being a social and political protest, was called, as before stated, "an antagonism between capital and labor that in one form or another has continued unabated to this day". Our economic problems are the source of many troubles and much legislation. Classes there must inevitably be, men, as Sam Adams said, of higher and lower degrees of power in mind and body, men superior and inferior in wisdom
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and talents ; but because of this no barriers need separate us or lines divide us in a full and honest effort for our own and the public good.
Engrossed as were our ancestors in commercial growth, material advancement, and great enterprises of peace and war, they suffered no loss in moral or spiritual values. In their many trials and perplexities they looked for underlying Christian principles, and applied them. They lifted their eyes unto the hills as their source of strength, and the measure of their reward was great to them and blessed their posterity with the great heritage of a free city and a free land. It is our duty to preserve that heritage and pass it along in the same spirit and with an appreciation of the same values.
We are free enough in our constitution and our laws but liberty needs the sustaining hand, the very necessary support, of moral integrity, Christian aggression and honest and unselfish co-operation. The observer, here- tofore quoted, says, "unless the moral sense of the people is keen, unless people do right because it is right, and abhor wrong because it is wrong, not all the plans and devices of the most fertile mentality applied to problems of state can halt for one instant the collapse of human liberty".
Pickering's reply to Gage was a doing unto others as we would be done by; this is a good political maxim but it happens to be more familiar as a Christian princi- ple, losing nothing in force however viewed. It is a principle at the foundation of our civil and religious liberty ; it enabled us to grow politically and gave a chance for harmony and co-operation by all the creeds in the solution of all our problems. It made us free politically and led us at once to religious tolerance as a national policy which later became part of the funda- mental law. Without the principle of religious freedom
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we might have failed, for it has been well said of religious intolerance that "it has been the evil genius which throughout the history of Christianity has been the enemy of progress and a lively cause of strife and misery". Pickering and the others knew how to be militant in their Christianity when militancy and aggres- sion were needed, remembering of the Founder that "in the rough and tumble of active campaigning in a com- mercial town like Capurnum or a bigoted capital like Jerusalem, antagonism and aggression were speedily developed ; handicapped and thwarted by selfishness intrenched in privilege, He became uncompromising, aggressive and belligerant". By such men as Pickering and the intellectuals of the period, as much as by any religious leaders of his of our day, Christianity was vitalized and twined with local and national issues to serve the national purpose and make a guide in com- mercial and civic problems.
We of today must feel that if Liberty is to be perpet- uated its seeds must be sown in the minds and rooted in the conscience of the whole people. And if our city is to live through the centuries to come in emulation of its past, we, like the citizens of the Revolutionary period, must be all heart and seek a leadership in all our affairs that will awaken no doubt as to its patriotic purpose and which will bind us all in trust and confidence and give us courage to confront all the present tyrannies and strength to destroy them.
Pickering's reply to Gage suggests a closing thought for us to bear in mind at the end of three centuries; it is too well expressed to be improved upon.
"Civilization and political institutions are themselves sources of not a few evils, which nothing but the intellec- tual and moral energy of the private citizen can avert or relieve .***** He who by an intellectual and moral
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energy awakens kindred energy in others, touches springs of infinite might, gives impulses to faculties to which no bounds can be prescribed, begins an action which will never end. One great and kindling thought from a retired and obscure man may live when thrones are fallen and the memory of those who filled them is obliterated, and like an undying fire may illuminate and quicken all future generations .******* History shows us not a few princes who have gained or strengthened thrones by assassination or war. But freedom, which is another name for justice, honor and benevolence, scorns to use the private dagger and wields with trembling the public sword. The true conspiracy before which tyranny is to fall, is that of virtuous, elevated minds which shall consecrate themselves to the work of awakening in men a consciousness of the rights, powers, purposes and great- ness of human nature and which shall oppose to force the heroism of intellect, conscience and self sacrifice".
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CHAPTER VI.
OUR LITERARY HERITAGE
"We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straightly looked after. We dream in our waking moments and walk in our sleep. Come, good sir, and my dear friend, I pray you let me lead you home".
"Morning came, and peeped, blushing, through the curtains; and at last sunrise threw a golden beam into the study, and laid it right across the minister's bedazzled eyes. There he was, with the pen still between his fingers, and a vast, immeasurable tract of written space behind him".
THE SCARLET LETTER
T "HE "Village Uncle" says, "on the desk, beneath the looking glass, lay the Bible, which I had begun to read aloud at the book of Genesis, and also the singing book that Susan used for her evening psalm; except the almanac, we had no other literature; all that I heard of books, was when an Indian history, or tale of shipwreck, was sold by a pedler or wandering subscription man, to some one in the village, and read through its owner's nose to a slumbrous auditory". This, doubtless, expressed a situation that was very general with us for a while, but we are all familiar with the way American communities progressed from the days when, as Stedman says, "the books of the elder American poets lay on the centre- tables of our households and were read with zest by young and old", to the days of public libraries in all our cities and towns. As a part of this progress our people were acquiring those little private libraries and setting
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NATHANIEL BOWDITCH
apart little studies like that of Arthur Dimmesdale who, entering his room, "looked around him on its books, its windows, its fireplace, and the tapestried comforts of the walls".
Many historical sketches of Salem refer to us as a com- mercial and literary city. How we became a commercial city, the world knows. In what way did we merit the designation of a literary city? A definition of literature may help us answer the question but Morely says that any attempted definition in such matters is a vanity. His own definition, however, is far from that and is wholly satisfactory and authoritative. He says "literature is one of the instruments for forming character, for giving us men and women armed with reason, braced by knowl- edge, clothed with steadfastness and courage, and in- spired by that public spirit and public virtue of which it has been well said that they are the brightest orna- ments of the mind of man"; and he adds that "the end of education on its literary side is to make a man and not a cyclopaedia, to make a citizen and not a book of elegant extracts".
Salem was a literary city in the light of this definition for we made men of character, public spirit, and virtue ; and they did the thing which Morely says counts most "both for happiness and duty"; they "lived habitually with wise thoughts and right feeling." It may fairly be said that we were pre-eminent in our preachers, jurists, statesmen, scientists, scholars, antiquarians, and histo- rians.
It was all natural enough, for if "literature is commen- surate with the universality of education" we were lit- erary because we stressed the cause of popular education and prospered it. From the beginning education was close to our hearts. The second free school of the colony was established here and the first grammar school was
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established in Salem in 1637. We organized the Social Library in 1760 and incorporated it under the name of the Social Evening Club in 1797 with 400 volumes. Two judges of the Supreme Court of the Province, a judge of the Superior Court and Court of Common Pleas were included during its existence in its distinguished mem- bership. Thus "a taste for literature and knowledge, and a zeal in the prosecution of scientific studies were im- parted to the community of which we can distinctly trace the imprints and monuments through all our sub- sequent history".
It is said "where there is much desire to learn, there will be much of arguing, much writing, and many opin- ions, and opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making". So we early had our lecture courses, lyceums, and debating clubs. And if "a man can scarcely be con- nected with intelligent society without being seduced, in some frail moment, to try how his thoughts will look in print", we may here find a reason why those not making a profession of writing found joy in this form of creation and an outlet in essays, poems, and contributions to the press. Of a descendant of Quaker Northey, dying here in 1900, after an active business career, it was said, "his leisure was given to literature and the drama and he organized the Salem Dramatic Club and was a member of the Salem Atheneum and the Essex Institute". This was rather typical of a great body of our citizenship. The pursuit of literature as a supplement to the ordinary business occupation and the love of books and know- ledge, were distinct characteristics of our people.
Thomas Macauley in responding to the toast, "The Literature of Britain" at the opening of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institute in 1846 said the literature of Brit- ain "has exercised an influence wider than that of com- merce and mightier than that of arms" and said, further,
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PIGNE
SALEM ATHENEUM
"it is, indeed, not impossible that some man of genius who may enrich our literature with imperishable elo- quence and song, or who may extend the empire of our race over matter, may feel in our reading room, for the first time, the consciousness of powers yet undeveloped ; it is not impossible that our volumes may suggest the first thought of something great to some future Burns, or Wait, or Arkwright. I well knew one eminent military servant of the East India Company, a man of great and various accomplishments, when I asked him how, having left the country while still a boy and having passed his youth at military stations in India, he had been able to educate himself, his answer was, that he had been sta- tioned in the neighborhood of an excellent library, that he had been allowed free access to the books, and that they had, at the most critical time of his life, decided his character".
Eight years before these words were uttered there died in Salem a man who gave a striking proof of their truth. Nathaniel Bowditch our great astronomer, explaining his testamentary gift to the Salem Atheneum said, "thus in early life I found near me a better collection of Philos- ophical and Scientific books than could be found in any other part of the United States nearer than Philadelphia, and by the kindness of its proprietors I was permitted to take books from that library and to consult and study them at pleasure; this inestimable advantage has made me deeply a debtor to the Salem Atheneum and I do therefore give to that institution the sum of one thousand dollars, the income thereof to be forever applied to the promotion of its objects and the extension of its use- fulness".
The Salem Atheneum was a gift that floated in from the sea and that helped one genius to extend the empire of our race over matter and, interestingly enough, the
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gift returned to the sea through Bowditch and enabled him to make a great contribution to world navigation. One of our privateers brought home a prize from the British Channel which was doubtless a heavy loss to its owner. The library of Dr. Richard Kirwan, a distin- guished Irish scholar, was captured while in transit to England during the Revolutionary War, and, after being brought home, it was sold to us and became the founda- tion for the Salem Atheneum which remains with us to this day.
The name of Nathaniel Bowditch might properly find a place with the celebrities of the shipping period but he is more appropriately classed as an author. He was poor and, in a very true sense, self made, and was early ap- prenticed to a ship chandler. He had not the special in- terest in the sea of a merchant or mariner. Serving ten years as captain's clerk or supercargo, he was engaged in off hours on his voyages in thought and study and be- came the most distinguished author of his time along his particular line and the lasting value of his work is attested by its use even to the present day. The books to which he had been allowed free access suggested the first thought of something great.
Our old mariners, during one period, found their way over the boundless deep by what was called dead reckon- ing and the "Village Uncle" speaks "of pilots who knew the wind by its scent and the wave by its taste, and could have steered blindfolded to any port between Boston and Mount Desert, guided only by the rote of the shore, the peculiar sound of the surf on each island, beach, and line of rocks along the coast". But when a committee of ship- masters examined the work of Bowditch they reported that he had "corrected many thousand errors in the best European works of the kind, especially those in the tables for determining the latitude by two altitudes, in those of
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difference of latitude and departure, of the sun's right ascension of amplitudes and many others necessary to the navigator ; his table nineteenth, of corrections to be applied in the lunar calculations, has the merit of being the only accurate one the committee is acquainted with ; he has much improved the table of latitudes and longi- tudes of places and has added those of a number on the American coast, hitherto very inaccurately ascertained".
This work of Bowditch, "The Practical Navigator", gave him world fame and brought his city rare distinc- tion. In a resolution on his death, our Marine Society said "as long as ships sail, the needle points, and the stars go through their appointed course in the Heavens, the name of Dr. Bowditch will be revered as one who helped his fellow men in time of need, who was, and is, to them a guide over the pathless ocean and as one who forwarded the great interest of mankind".
Works of a scientific character, like the above, are in- cluded, usually, only in an elastic definition of literature or recognized as part of its broad purpose. To bring a work within the popular and restricted definition, it must be characterized by artistic form or style and deal with the emotions and passions, or great moral truths. The author of such works may then be called an artist and is said to soon feel "a longing after immortality that mounts into a hope, a hope that becomes a conviction of the power of realizing itself in all the glory of ideal reality".
Salem produced many writers and literary artists. There were Jonathan Sewell, poet as well as lawyer, and Joseph Orne, poet as well as physician; and Warwick Palfrey, author as well as editor and Joseph Barlow Felt, antiquarian and author of Felt's Annals; and Joseph Gibbs and Francis Calley Gray and William Prescott the historian, and Henry Felt Baker, author as well as in- ventor, and Charles Dexter Cleveland, and Elias Haskett
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Derby, the second; and Bowditch the historian and Charles Timothy Brooks who translated "Faust" and Poole the author and librarian, and Samuel Johnson, poet as well as clergyman, and George W. Searle, a legal au- thor, and Maria Cummins the author of "The Lamp- lighter". And Upham, one of our Congressmen, wrote exhaustively on Witchcraft, and Bentley gave us his cherished "Diary". There were many others like William Whetmore Story, with a versatility that was striking. He was a sculptor and a lawyer, with several volumes of law books and poems to his credit. He also wrote fiction and essays. He was the son of Joseph Story, a justice of the U. S. Supreme Court and published his father's life and letters. He also wrote an historical play and novel. He died in Italy in 1895. He was the author of the well known poem "Cleopatra" where, indeed, he "loosened his fancy to play", picturing the "Star Eyed Egyptian" as a "smooth velvety tiger" hearing her mate roaring for her in the "amber moonlight".
Of our authors who attained distinction, one became immortal. Joseph H. Choate, our ambassador to Eng- land, and one of our gifted sons, whose memorial stands at the head of old Essex Street, in an address delivered in Salem in 1878, said, "I wanted to say something of some great names that have shed such lustre upon Salem. There is one that I will not omit because in my judgment, and I believe in that of many of the sons and daughters of Salem abroad, it is the dearest and most precious jewel in the diadem of imperial Salem. I give you the memory of Nathaniel Hawthorne, a native of Salem, descended from her earliest settlers. So imbued was he with the genius of her sons and so deeply has he enthroned it in his matchless works, that though its ancient buildings should crumble, though the forests should grow again between these historic rivers, and the place be forgotten
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NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE AT BOWDOIN COLLEGE
where Salem was, her name, her traditions, and the spirit of her history will still be familiar so long as men can read the English tongue, the "Twice Told Tales" and "The House of Seven Gables".
We think of Hawthorne as misplaced as weigher of coal at the Custom House and as Surveyor of Customs and, later, as Consul at Liverpool, an appointment he re- ceived from President Franklin Pierce, his friend at Bow- doin College ; but by this last appointment he was enabled to see England and visit Italy.
Mr. Andrew J. George in his introduction to the Blithe- dale Romance says, "the contrast between the harsh Pur- itanism of Salem and the mellow environment of Rome and Florence was sufficiently marked to stir within him the poet's soul to a new birth ; he awoke to a new life, out of which he created that great romance, "The Marble Faun".
Hawthorne had a long line of Puritan ancestors, being descended from William Hawthorne who settled in Salem in 1630. He was environed by every Puritan influence but the manner in which he redeemed Puritanism in his life and works is again told by Mr. George who says, "he searched the depths of our nature for the truths of heredity, the blending of good and evil, by which even sin may be an occasion of the deepening impulse whereby the human soul may rise to the heights of life; if Puritan- ism caused the imagination to be stifled and perverted in its activities so that it sought refuge in the diablerie of Witchcraft, it is pleasant to think that in Hawthorne it was rescued and given its natural atmosphere of sights and sounds, of thought and action, of pity and pathos, of conduct and beauty". Hawthorne himself, in speaking of the church painting and music said, after his Italian visit, "I deem it a pity that Protestantism should have entirely laid aside this mode of appealing to the religious sentiment".
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