Old Salem was a city of the imagination. History does it no justice.
The "Essex Institute," founded in 1848, by the union of the "Essex
County Historical Society" and the "Essex County Natural History
Society," has a very fine collection of books, pamphlets, manuscripts,
an invaluable museum, relics, pictures, so that in no locality in the
country has so much been accomplished in exhuming the treasures of
municipal and civil history, and in bringing to light antiquities.
Hurd's "History of Essex County," published in 1888, with its monographs
on commerce, religion, literature, newspapers, etc., written by
thoroughly competent men, throws a flood of light on the past of the
place. Mr. Upham's "Memoir of Francis Peabody," published in 1868, gives
an admirable account of the literary eminence of the old town. Colonel
Higginson's article in _Harper's Monthly_ on "Old Salem's Sea Captains,"
published in September, 1886, gives something of its romantic character.
But best of all as illustrating this feature are the articles written by
"Eleanor Putnam" (Mrs. Arlo Bates), and republished after her death
under the title of "Old Salem," in 1887. She was about thirty years old
when she died; but if she had lived she would have presented the old
city in its quaintest aspect. Her love of antiquarian research, her
taste, her devotion to Salem qualified her in an eminent degree for her
self-appointed task.
There can hardly be a doubt that the origins of the town were
religious; that a religious purpose, deep though undefined and
undeclared, animated the emigrants before Winthrop. The very name,
Salem, the Hebrew for peacefulness, instead of "Naumkeag" (the old
Indian name), adopted in 1628, to commemorate the reconciliation between
the company of Roger Conant and that of John Endicott, was already
suggestive of spiritual qualities. Eminent forms loom up in the
distance: Francis Higginson, the first minister of Massachusetts Bay;
Roger Williams, whose name is identified with "soul freedom"; Hugh
Peters, his opponent. John Endicott was a most imposing figure; hasty,
rash, choleric (as was shown by his striking a man in early life),
imperious, but brave and bold. He was a stern Puritan, hating popery so
much that he cut out the image of the king from the English banner,
because it was an image, while at the same time he persecuted the
Quakers, because they advocated obedience to the "inner light" and were
disturbers of the established peace. But he had sweeter
qualities--gentleness, generosity, and kindness. An old scripture
(Ecclesiasticus xi., 28) says: "Judge none blessed before his death; for
a man shall be known in his children." The descendants of John Endicott
are graceful, elegant, refined people, lovely in manners, gentle in
disposition. The root of these qualities must have been in the
forefather two centuries and a half ago. The intellectual history of the
city is very illustrious and began early. A strong intellectual bent
characterized the early settlers, who were persons of inquisitive minds,
addicted to experiments and enterprises, exceedingly ingenious. Near the
middle of the last century there was in existence in Salem a social
evening club, composed of eminent cultivated and accomplished citizens.
On the evening of Monday, March 31, 1760, a meeting was held at the
Tavern House of a Mrs. Pratt for the purpose of "founding in the town of
Salem a handsome library of valuable books, apprehending the same may be
of considerable use and benefit under proper regulations." The books
imported, given, or bought, amounted to four hundred and fifteen
volumes. This society, which may be regarded as the foundation of all
the institutions and agencies established in this place to promote
intellectual culture, was incorporated in 1797. In 1766, the famous
Count Rumford was an apprentice here. In 1781, Richard Kirwan, LL.D., of
Dublin, an eminent philosopher of the period, had a valuable library in
a vessel which was captured by an American private armed ship and
brought into Beverly as a prize. The books were given by Dr. Kirwan, who
would accept no gratuity and was delighted that his volumes were put to
so good a use. The books were sold to an association of gentlemen in
Salem and its neighborhood, and formed the "Philosophical Library." This
and the "Social Library" were afterwards consolidated into the "Salem
Athenaeum," which was incorporated in March, 1810.
Among the distinguished men were William H. Prescott, Benjamin Peirce,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Lewis Russell, Charles Grafton Page, and Jones
Very. Here lived Edward Augustus Holyoke, president of the Massachusetts
Medical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Timothy
Pickering, Rev. John Prince, Rev. William Bentley, Nathaniel Bowditch,
author of the "Practical Navigator" and translator of the "Mecanique
Celeste"; John Pickering, Joseph Story, of the Supreme Bench; Daniel
Appleton White, Leverett Saltonstall, Benjamin Merrill, and many another
man of accomplishments and learning. Even the uneducated, and those
engaged in the common occupations of everyday life, gratified their love
of knowledge, and followed up, for their private enjoyment, researches
in intellectual and philosophical spheres; apothecaries and retail
shopkeepers distinguished themselves as writers; one of them--Isaac
Newhall by name--was reputed the author of the famous "Junius Letters,"
thus enjoying companionship with Burke, Gibbon, Grattan, Camden,
Chatham, Chesterfield, and other distinguished writers.
Its commercial history was exceedingly brilliant. In its palmy days it
had more trade with the East Indies than all the other American ports
put together. Its situation by the sea encouraged maritime adventure.
From its very infancy its inhabitants sent vessels across the Atlantic
of forty to sixty tons, and followed up the trade with Spain, France,
Italy, and the West India Islands. In the war of the Revolution it sent
out one hundred and fifty-eight armed ships, mounting at least two
thousand guns, and carrying not less than six thousand men. In 1785,
Salem sent out the first vessel to the Isle of France, Calcutta, and
China; she began also the trade to the other ports of the East Indies
and Japan; to Madagascar and Zanzibar, Brazil and Africa. In the south
seas, Salem ships first visited the Fiji Islands; they first opened up
to our commerce New Holland and New Zealand. In the war of 1812 she had
two hundred and fifty privateers. When the war was over, these vessels
were engaged in the merchant service. Mr. E. H. Derby, one of the great
merchants, said to be the richest man in America, sent out thirty-seven
vessels in fourteen years, making a hundred and twenty voyages. The
names of the great merchants, E. H. Derby, N. Silsbee, William Gray,
Peabody, Crowningshield, Pickman, Cleveland, Cabot, Higginson, are of
universal celebrity. Then Derby Street was alive with sea-captains, the
custom-house was active, the tall warehouses were full of treasures, the
great East Indiamen fairly made the air fragrant as they unloaded their
merchandise. To quote the language of "Eleanor Putnam": "There was
poetry in the names of the vessels--the ship _Lotus_, the _Black
Warrior_, the brig _Persia_, the _Light Horse_, the _Three Friends_, and
the great _Grand Turk_. There was, too, a charm about the cargoes. They
were no common-place bales of merchandise, but were suggestive in their
very names of the sweet, strange odors of the East, from which they
came. There was food for the imagination in the mention of those
ship-loads of gum copal from Madagascar and Zanzibar; of hemp and iron
from Russia; of Bombay cotton; of ginger, pepper, coffee, and sugar from
India; of teas, silks, and nankeens from China; salt from Cadiz; and
fruits from the ports of the Mediterranean."
Miss Putnam speaks of the gorgeous fans, the carved ivory, the blue
Canton china, the generous tea-cups, the tureens, the heavy tankards,
the Delft jars, the ancient candle-sticks, the heavy punch bowls, the
strange beads, suggestive of the Hindoo rites, Nautch dances, and women
with dusky throats. Then the very air was weighty with romantic
adventures. We read with awe of cashmere shawls hanging on clothes
lines, of jars full of silver coin, of the gilded fishes on the side of
each stair, of the grand staircase in the front hall of Mr. Pickman's
house on Essex Street, of logs of sandal-wood. The museum of the East
India Marine Society contains sceptres from the Fiji Islands; a musical
instrument from New South Wales, another from Borneo; a carved statue of
a rich Persian merchant of Bombay; an alabaster figure of a Chinese Jos;
a copper idol from Java; a mirror from Japan; fans from Maraba, the
Marquesas Islands, Calcutta; cloth from Otaheite; an earthen patera from
Herculaneum; two dresses of women from the Pelew Islands; sandal-wood
from the Sandwich Islands; a parasol from Calcutta; nutmegs from
Cayenne; thirty-six specimens of Italian marble; cement from the palace
of the Caesars at Rome; white marble from Carthage; porphyry from Italy;
beads worn by the Pundits and Fakirs in India; a glass cup from Owyhee;
Verde Antico from Sicily; sandal-wood tapers from China; wood images of
mummies from Thebes; a silver box from Soo-Soo; porphyry from
Madagascar; a piece of mosaic from ancient Carthage; silk cocoons from
India; marble from the temple of Minerva at Athens; piece of pavement
from the site of ancient Troy; and polished jasper from Siberia.
When I was in Salem, from 1847 to 1855, this splendor had departed.
Derby Street was deserted, the great warehouses were tenements for
laborers. Hawthorne has described the custom-house in his famous preface
to the "Scarlet Letter." The sailors had disappeared; the commerce,
owing mainly to the shallowness of the water in the harbor, had gone to
Boston and New York. But traces of the old glory still lingered. Here
and there a great merchant was seen on the streets. Some of the old
houses remained: the Pickering House on Broad Street, built in 1651; the
Turner House; Roger Williams' house, at the corner of Essex and North
Streets, built before 1634; and Mr. Forrester's house.
As the chairman of the Salem Lyceum, it was my privilege to entertain
such men as R. W. Emerson, George W. Curtis and others. Thomas Starr
King, when he lectured in Danvers, drove over to my house, and spent the
rest of the evening. Nathaniel Hawthorne I used to meet frequently on
the street. I often saw Mrs. Hawthorne leading her children by the hand.
Mr. Hawthorne, who was in Salem from 1846 to 1849, was remarkable for
his shyness. His favorite companions were some Democratic politicians,
who met weekly at the office of one of them, where he occupied himself
in listening to their talk, but he avoided cultivated people. On one
occasion a friend of mine asked us to meet him at dinner; twice he went
to remind his guest of the engagement. The hour arrived, the dinner was
kept waiting half an hour for Mr. Hawthorne to come. He said but little
during the dinner, and immediately afterward got up and went away; his
reluctance to meet people overcoming his sense of propriety.
My church, the "North Church," as it was called, was a handsome
building on the main street, a stone structure with a tower, and a green
before it. It was founded in 1772 by people who had left the First
Parish by reason of great dissatisfaction. The first minister, called in
1773, was Thomas Barnard. He was a broad-minded, liberal man, and left
the church substantially Unitarian. His successor was J. E. Abbot,
called in 1815, whose ministry, from ill-health, was very short. My
predecessor, John Brazer, a cultivated, scholarly, sensitive man, a good
preacher, an excellent pastor, was settled in 1820. My ministry there
was exceedingly pleasant and tranquil for several years. There were long
hours for studying; the parish work was not hard; the people were
honest, quiet, sober, some of them exceedingly refined and gentle; it
was as if the old Puritan spirit, modified by time, still lingered about
the old town. Family life was beautiful to see; the homes were charming;
there was luxury enough; there was great intelligence, singular activity
of mind; and I remember well the bright conversations, the
entertainments, the teas, the dinners, the receptions, the social
meetings. The women, especially, were distinguished for interest in
literary matters. Many interesting people still lived in the town,
Daniel Appleton White, for instance, Dr. Treadwell, Benjamin Merrill,
Thomas Cole; some of these were my parishioners and all were my friends.
But the life was almost too quiet for me, as circumstances presently
proved.
At the same time, as if to render impossible my further ministration in
this first place of service, the anti-slavery agitation was at its
height, dividing churches, breaking up sects, setting the members of
families against each other, detaching ministers from their
congregations, and arraying society in hostile camps. The noise of the
conflict filled the air. It was impossible to evade the issue. Those who
had fixed positions in the community, were of a tranquil temperament, or
of an easy conscience, might survey the battle calmly, or be vexed only
by the confusion in the social world; but they who had the future still
before them could not but feel the necessity of taking sides in the
quarrel. When Garrison, the incarnate conscience, was enunciating the
moral law and illustrating it by flaming texts from the Old Testament;
when the intrepid Phillips was throwing the light of history on
politics, and putting statesmanship in the face of humanity, judging all
men by the maxims of ethical philosophy; when Parker was proclaiming the
absolute justice, and Clarke was applying the truths of the eternal
love; and many others, men and women, were thundering forth the divine
vengeance on iniquity; when facts were set out for everybody's reading,
and tongues were unloosed, and fiery messages proceeded from all mouths,
and conviction was deep, and eloquence was stirring, it was impossible
to be still.
Now the situation is changed; the evil is removed; the wound has
healed; the surgeon's knife has been put up in its case. A new
philosophy is disposed to blame the action of the anti-slavery
champions. Some critics have doubted whether the conduct of the
abolitionists was wise; whether their primary assumption of the
political equality of all men was correct; whether a race that had never
founded a government or contributed to the advance of civilization could
add any weight to the cause of liberty. But then such misgivings could
not be raised. The abolitionists seemed to have on their side the
precepts of the New Testament, the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount,
the character and example of Jesus, the burning language of prophecy,
the inspiring traditions of primitive Christianity, the humane instincts
of the heart, the moral sentiments of equity, pity, compassion, all
reinforced by the growing democratic opinion of the age, and by the
tenets of the intuitive philosophy then coming to the front. The glowing
passages from Isaiah and from Matthew: "Let the oppressed go free; break
every yoke"; "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye
did it unto me," shone in our eyes. To the anti-slavery people belonged
the heroic virtues, courage, faithfulness, and sacrifice. Theirs was the
martyr spirit; the readiness to surrender ease, position, and success
for an idea. It would have been strange if, at such a time, a young man,
a clergyman, too, had been a champion of vested interests. The doctrine
of a higher law than that of the State commended itself to his idealism,
and pledged him to oppose what he regarded as legalized wrong. The
doctrine of legal rights for all men made him a firm enemy of organized
inhumanity. It was a period of passionate war. In every department of
the Church and State the irrepressible conflict went on. It was no time
for the calm voice of the loving spirit of wisdom to be heard. It was no
time to propose that the local laws respecting slavery should be
remodelled, and the relation between whites and blacks readjusted on
more equitable principles. The science of anthropology had no weight in
America or anywhere else. No exhaustive study of race peculiarities
could be entered on. The combatants had the whole field, and between the
combatants there seemed to be no room for choice by a minister of the
Gospel, an enthusiastic friend of humanity, a democrat, and a
transcendentalist.
On one occasion, after a brutal scene in Boston attending the return of
a slave to his master, feeling that the larger part of his congregation
were in sympathy with the government, and approved of the act of
surrender, the excited minister declined to give the ordinance of
communion, thinking it would be a mockery. This action brought the
growing disaffection to a head. The feeling of the parish was divided.
Bitter words were exchanged. The situation on both sides became
uncomfortable, and he accepted an invitation to another city, where he
could exercise his independence without check or limit.
The position in regard to slavery which was taken thirty years ago
there is no room to regret. It was taken with perfect sincerity, and
under an uncontrollable pressure of conviction. The part performed by
the abolitionists was predestined. The conduct of their opponents looks
now as irrational as it did then. American slavery was so atrocious a
system, so hideous a blot, that no terms were to be kept with it.
Probably nothing but the surgeon's knife would have availed in dealing
with such a cancerous mass. The cord had become so fatally twisted that
the knot, too closely drawn to be untied, must be cut with the sword.
The abolition of slavery was inevitable; it came about through a great
elemental upheaval. The situation had become intolerable and was past
reforming. Long before the war, it had become impossible to get along
with the slaveholders, except on the most ignoble principles of trade or
fashion. All manly acquiescence was out of the question. The Unitarians,
as such, were indifferent or lukewarm; the leading classes were opposed
to the agitation. Dr. Channing stood almost alone in lending countenance
to the reform, though his hesitation between the dictates of natural
feeling and Christian charity towards the masters hampered his action,
and rendered him obnoxious to both parties,--the radicals finding fault
with him for not going further, the conservatives blaming him because he
went so far. The transcendentalists were quite universally
abolitionists, for their philosophy pointed directly towards the
exaltation of every natural power. Wherever they touched the earth--as
they did not always, some of them soaring away beyond terrestrial
things--flowers of hope sprang up in their path. In France, Germany, and
England, they were friends of intellectual and social progress, of the
ideal democracy. The spiritual philosophy was in the air; its ideas were
unconsciously absorbed by the enthusiastic spirits. They constituted the
life of the period; they were a light to such as dwelt in darkness or
sat under the shadow of death.
In this country Mr. Emerson led the dance of the hours. He was our
poet, our philosopher, our sage, our priest. He was the eternal man. If
we could not go where he went, it was because we were weak and unworthy
to follow the steps of such an emancipator. His singular genius, his
wonderful serenity of disposition inherited from an exceptional ancestry
and seldom ruffled by the ordinary passions of men, his curious felicity
of speech, his wit, his practical wisdom, raised him above all his
contemporaries. His infrequent contact with the world of affairs, his
seclusion in the country, his apparitions from time to time on lecture
platforms or in convention halls, gave a far-off sound to his voice as
if it fell from the clouds. Some among his friends found fault with him
for being bloodless and ethereal, but this added to the effect of his
presence and his word. The mixture of Theism and Pantheism in his
thoughts, of the personal and the impersonal, of the mystical and the
practical, fascinated the sentiment of the generation, while the lofty
moral strain of his teaching awakened to increased energy the wills of
men. His speech and example stimulated every desire for reform, turning
all eyes that were opened to the land of promise that seemed fully in
sight. How much the anti-slavery conviction of the time, along with
every other movement for the purification of society, owed to him we
have always been fond of saying with that indefiniteness of
specification which communicates so much more than it tells. This must
be said, that, in the exhilaration of the period, they that worked
hardest felt no exhaustion, and they that sacrificed most were conscious
of no self-abnegation, and they that threw their lives into this cause
had no sentiment but one of overflowing gratitude and joy. The
anti-slavery agitation was felt to be something more than an attempt to
apply the Beatitudes and the Parables to a flagrant case of
inhumanity--it was regarded as a new interpreter of religion, a fresh
declaration of the meaning of the Gospel, a living sign of the purely
human character of a divine faith, an education in brotherly love and
sacrifice; it was a common saying that now, for the first time in many
generations, the essence of belief was made visible and palpable to all
men; that Providence was teaching us in a most convincing way, and none
but deaf ears could fail to understand the message.
It was, indeed, a most suggestive and inspiring time. Never shall I
forget, never shall I cease to be grateful for, the communion with noble
minds that was brought about, the moral earnestness that was engendered,
the moral insight that was quickened. Then, if ever, we ascended the
Mount of Vision. I was brought into close communion with living men, the
most living of the time, the most under the influence of stimulating
thoughts; and if they were intemperate in their speech, extravagant in
their opinions, absolute in their moral judgments, that must be taken as
proof of the depth of their conviction. They loved much, and therefore
could be forgiven, if forgiveness was necessary. They sacrificed a good
deal, too, some of them everything in the shape of worldly honor, and
this brought them apparently into line with the confessors and saints.
They made real the precepts of the New Testament. Their clients were the
poor, the lowly, the disfranchised, the unprivileged, against whom the
grandeurs of the world lifted a heavy hand. They were champions of those
who sorrowed and prayed, and this was enough to win sympathy and disarm
criticism. It was a great experience; not only was religion brought face
to face with ethics, but it was identified with ethics. It became a
religion of the heart: pity, sympathy, humanity, and brotherhood were
its essential principles. At the anti-slavery fairs all sorts and
conditions of men met together, without distinction of color or race or
sex. There was really an education in the broadest faith, in which
dogma, creed, form, and rite were secondary to love; and love was not
only universal, but was warm.
Salem was the home of story and legend. There Puritanism showed its best
and worst sides, for there Roger Williams preached, and there the
witches were persecuted. The house where they were tried and the hill
where they were executed were objects of curiosity. There were the wild
pastures and the romantic shores, and broad streets shaded by elm trees,
and gardens and greenhouses. There were spacious mansions and beautiful
country-seats and pleasant walks. There was beauty and grace and
accomplishment and wit. There were quaint old buildings, and ways once
trodden by pious and heroic feet. On the whole, this was the most
idyllic period in my ministry. Thither came Emanuel Vitalis Scherb, the
native of Basel, an exile for opinion's sake, a man full of genius,
learning, enthusiasm. Young, handsome, hopeful, his lectures on German
literature and poetry attracted notice in Boston, whence he came to
Salem to talk and be entertained. The best houses were open to him; the
best people went to hear him. Alas, poor Scherb! His day of popularity
was short. He sank from one stage of poverty to another; he was indebted
to friends for aid, among the rest to H. W. Longfellow, who clung to him
till the last, and finally died from disease in a military hospital
early in our Civil War.
I remember, in connection with Samuel Johnson, collecting an audience
for Mr. A. B. Alcott, the most adroit soliloquizer I ever listened to,
who delivered in a vestry-room a series of those remarkable
"conversations"--versations with the _con_ left out--for which he was
celebrated. It was, in many respects, a happy time.