‘And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets’ (Ecclesiastes, 7, 26).
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December 2nd, 1660
A thaw came, swift and unexpected, taking much of the snow. This has been followed by a sharp frost, freezing the roads and making it easier to travel. Obadiah Wilson is anxious to be gone, feeling that his work in Beulah is done.
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December 4th, 1660
Obadiah Wilson has been persuaded to stay for a little time longer. There is concern over one of the afflicted girls. Hannah Vane continues to do poorly. It is feared that others in our midst are still busy about the Devil’s business and that they do come upon the unfortunate girl, to the very great impairing of her strength and wasting of her spirits.
My own fear is for Obadiah himself. For this is the season for rheums and colds and he is frequently racked with coughing and daily spits blood.
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December 20th, 1660
The frost holds, turning all to iron. Again I find truth in Proverbs 28, 1, viz. ‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth,’ for Martha Everdale and Jonah Morse are gone. Even though this is not the season for it, they are travelling on. Obadiah Wilson smiles between his coughing. There is no smoke without fire, he says, and witches seldom work alone.
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January 6th, 1661
Perhaps Obadiah Wilson was right, for little Hannah is somewhat recovered. Wilson says that this is a sure sign that the evil has gone from us, and I pray that it is so. He himself is preparing to leave. His work here is done, but he will be needed in other places if the Devil is not to break forth again in our fair New England. Although this is a bad time for travelling, the roads are firm and there is little snow. I have offered to go with him to Salem, for I do not think that he would survive the rigours of the journey if he travels alone. His coughing is no better. He is little more than skin and bone and lately a violent fever racks his body and spots his cheeks. He needs the services of a doctor and we have none here, nor apothecary now, nor any skilled in herbs and healing. If he does not seek help soon, I fear that it will be too late.
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February 9th, 1661
Obadiah Wilson has been taken from us, God rest his soul. He died yestereve, seized with a fit of coughing that would not stop. He died of haemorrhage, choking and gargling, drowning in his own blood.
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March 1st, 1661
At last the year is turning, the thaw has set in now, heralding the Spring. The afflicted girls have all but recovered. The Reverend Johnson has been tending to the Vane sisters, Deborah and Hannah, since the curse of affliction fell heaviest upon them. Deborah, the elder of the two, does especially well. All afflictions left her some time ago and she fairly blossoms in his presence.
I am also most pleased with the progress that I have made with Sarah Garner. She has become my particular responsibility, and I pride myself on how well she does under my care. All fits and afflictions having ceased some time ago, she prospers mightily. Indeed, I would think my work done, except she implores me so to see her still in case the evils come again. She weeps when I am leaving, and her mother says she pines most piteously for my return. For my part, I own that I have grown fond of her. She is a most sweet child, so different from that other, as innocent and guileless as the day. As soon as I feel that she is recovered sufficiently to take up wifely duties, I hope that she will make me the happiest of men.
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August 14th, 1661
The weather stays hot and sultry, most unpleasant. My fears grow for the Reverend Johnson. His new young wife has failed to lift his mood and he has become ever more melancholy. He sits in his room and broods. His beard and hair are streaked with white and grow increasingly unkempt. When he does not keep to the house he has taken to wandering far and wide. I fear that he is falling victim to a distemper of the brain. Certainly, he neglects his duties most shamefully. I have to visit the sick on his behalf and have taken Sunday services four weeks in a row.
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September 8th, 1661
Terrible news this day. I hardly have the strength, nor the will to write. The Reverend Johnson has been found drowned. He was discovered this morning, face down in the swamp.
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September 26th, 1661
The Reverend Johnson has been laid in the Burying Ground, next to the wife he lost a year since and those of his children taken unto God, although some do mutter that he has no place there at all and should be put outside the wall. Rumours abound that the melancholy he had lately suffered seized his mind entirely and that he is guilty of self-murder. This is a terrible accusation and one that I have taken care to repudiate most vigorously. How could any man of Reverend Johnson’s virtue commit such a hideous sin? How could he turn his back on our Lord and follow the path of the despised Iscariot out to the Judas tree? It is a double crime against God and Commonwealth; it is not in his nature to do such a thing, but still the rumours persist. He was found in a pool both brackish and shallow, where the water is scarce a foot deep.
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October 5th, 1661
The Reverend Johnson’s death, most especially the manner of it, has come as a very great shock to Beulah. Many have been deeply affected by it. Not least little Hannah Vane. It seems to have turned her wits entirely. She refuses to eat or drink and loses flesh by the day. She has not left her bed since the news of his death, but lies curled with her face to the wall. Sarah thinks her not long for this world.
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October 14th, 1661
Reverend Johnson’s death has thrown all into doubt. Many of the people here came with him from England, crossing the seas at his bidding, following him into the Wilderness, as the Israelites followed Moses. Others came later, as I did, in very great faith and belief in him and his vision of a City on the Hill.
Now many are saying that vision was false. They say now that Reverend Johnson did not choose well when he planted this settlement. He was no farmer and his visions blinded him to the poor quality of the land: the soil is hard to work, every acre must be wrested from the forest, and the presence of the swamp gives off an evil miasma and brings mosquitoes in summer and bothersome flies.
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October 20th, 1661
John Rivers has received news of his brothers, whom he came here to seek. Harvest is done and he prepares to leave. With the Riverses go Tobias Morse and his wife Rebekah, and their little child. I do not know where they go, but have heard that they mean to travel south and west, even as far as Connecticut.
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October 24th, 1661
Reverend Johnson’s widow, Deborah, wastes no time in finding a husband. My good wife, Sarah, tells me that she is to marry Ned Cardwell, a man inferior in station, an erstwhile hireling of Deborah’s uncle. I express my very great surprise. I tell Sarah that Cardwell must be marrying her for money. I know that Reverend Johnson left his wife well provided for. Sarah says that must be so, but I have lately learned that Deborah and Cardwell long had an understanding, perhaps more than that. I would not, of course, repeat this to Sarah. Such talk would offend her modesty and bring the blood rushing to her cheeks.
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October 26th, 1661
Hannah Vane did not live to see her sister’s nuptials. She died this day, wasted away.
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October 27th, 1661
Deborah and Ned Cardwell are married, but Sarah tells me that they plan to leave for Gloucester. Ned is done with farming, so he declares, and wants to use his new-found wealth to open a tavern. Gloucester is a seaport and thus has opportunities for enterprises of that sort.
Others talk of leaving also. A new settlement has grown up to the north where our little river joins a greater. Reverend Johnson frowned upon any intercourse with our neighbours, fearing ungodly influences, but now he has gone and news comes that this other township is seeking for settlers and that good land abounds with fishing aplenty where the river falls and copious meadowland
.
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November 1st, 1661
I myself have resolved to leave Beulah. I intend to take Sarah and the babe she expects (for we are blessed!) to Boston and seek for a ministry there. I have ever found the people here to be of a poor sort, ignorant and for the most part uneducated. I wish to live in a community more congenial, which will provide proper sustenance to both mind and spirit. Even so, I would have stayed to do the Lord’s work here in Beulah, had the people seen fit to choose me as their spiritual leader. Instead they seek another. So be it.
Note 2. Deborah Vane
A search of the Essex County records shows that she failed to prosper after she left Beulah. After she married Ned Cardwell, they moved to Gloucester and bought a tavern. It was not long before they began to appear in the court records for violent behaviour, often directed towards each other. Ned was often the complainant.
1. Offered in evidence by Ned Cardwell against Deborah Cardwell on a charge of common assault, Essex court records, 1665:
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She took me by the throat & with her fist did punch me in the breast so that I was faint with wont of breath. Then she came upon me with a hatchet, forcing me to flee ...
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2. Evidence offered by Deborah Cardwell on a plea of self-defence:
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After he hath given me several blows, threat’ned me with whip and knife, and altogether used me most barbarosely.
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Court decision: defendant found not guilty, but both warned to mend their ways for ‘their several riotous behaviours’ under threat of fines and the whipping post. Further indictments for drunkenness (both of them) in 1667, 1668, and for keeping a disorderly house. In 1669 they both stood accused:
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For having received into your house and given entertainment unto disorderly Company and ministering unto them wine and strong waters unto Drunkenness and that not without some iniquity both in the measure and pryce thereof.
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Licence revoked.
Deborah Cardwell’s name occurs on a 1670 passenger list manifest on the ship Fortune bound for Virginia. No Ned Cardwell on the passenger list.
In 1673 Mistress Cardwell, late of Massachusetts, appeared before the justices for allowing her premises to become ‘a veritable baudie house and meeting ground for rogues, whores, desolute and rooking persones’. This is the last documented reference to Deborah.
Note 3. Fate of Beulah
Beulah disappeared from the historical record some time in the 1660s. This disappearance is not all that surprising. Many towns sprang up about that time; while some grew, others decayed and died. This could happen for any number of reasons: some were too isolated from other communities, vulnerable to local Indian hostility, others had been established in inauspicious places. In still others the inhabitants had fallen out among themselves. Sometimes the ruling regime was too rigid or too lax, causing settlers to leave and not be replaced. If the population fell below a critical mass, then the settlement was no longer viable.
Without historical record, there can only be archaeological evidence.
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Beulah? Could be
fwd fr Toni T:
FROM: InHouse Archaeology
http://www.InHouseArch.com/editorial/20010408/1047257.asp
Latest Finds
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A site between Lowell and Billerica has been yielding interesting finds. Site Director and Associate Professor of Anthropology Ed Jordan reports on last summer’s dig. Jordan and his students spent two weeks last summer in digging a site which provided the local university with a chance to examine what life was like for European settlers in the middle of the seventeenth century. While some of the sites that have been examined have been thousands of years old, the program’s summer 2000 dig examined the ‘Dowell Site’ in the Billerica area. The site was believed to have been an English community that existed between about 1650 and 1670, said Jordan. The discoveries from the site are now on display in the local library.
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, glass and lead musket balls. 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 shell 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-ownership sources show he bought a property which combined house and shop, with a back yard where he probably planted a physick garden.
Documents:
Drugs and Medicines
Mr Jonah Morse
has lately received a general assortment
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
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Broadsheet advertisement, owned by Boston Historical Society. The Society also possesses a small pamphlet, Certain Receipts:
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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 hoarhound 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.
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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 glass alembic
1 pottery alembic
2 pestle & mortar (one great of stone, one small of brasse)
1 scales
1 cabinete and contents
to my wife, Martha (or profite from the sale of such)
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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 Appron 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.
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Letters between Sarah Rivers and Rebekah Morse
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July 1675
My dear daughter,
I do heartily enjoin you to come to us. War has broken out between settler and Indian. The t
rouble 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
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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 Pocumtuck 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
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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 God that all arrive safe.
I remain ever your obedient & loving daughter,
Rebekah Morse