PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK THE ONLY BIRTHDAY HE EVER COMMEMORATED 1 WAS THAT OF OUR INDEPENDENCE, THE 4TH OF JULY : NATHANIEL HATHORNE HAWTHORNE BORN 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 DIED “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, 1. This, actually, was Thomas Jefferson’s self-description, having nothing to do with our Nathaniel who actually was “Born on the 4th of July” and who thus actually did (along with Rube Goldberg) have our nation’s birthday as his personal birthday. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY A WEEK: PEOPLE OF But since we sailed A WEEK Some things have failed, And many a dream Gone down the stream. Here then an aged shepherd dwelt, Who to his flock his substance dealt, And ruled them with a vigorous crook, By precept of the sacred Book; But he the pierless bridge passed o’er, And solitary left the shore. Anon a youthful pastor came, Whose crook was not unknown to fame, His lambs he viewed with gentle glance, Spread o’er the country’s wide expanse, And fed with “Mosses from the Manse.” Here was our Hawthorne in the dale, And here the shepherd told his tale. REVEREND EZRA RIPLEY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 2 “As for his Puritanism, he hadn’t any.” 2. A comment by a cousin of Nathaniel Hawthorne. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1606 In this year or the next William Hathorne was born in England. He would in 1630 arrive at Salem as a Puritan Pilgrim. We have his holograph signature upon a warrant for the whipping out of town of Friend Anne Coleman for being a Quaker. His son John Hathorne (1641-1717) would not actually judge at any witchcraft trial, but would conduct some of the preliminary hearings for that series of trials. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Nathaniel Hawthorne “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1630 June 12, Saturday (Old Style; June 25, Tuesday on the modern Gregorian calendar): The Arbella bearing Simon Bradstreet and Anne Bradstreet entered Salem harbor. Old records fix this family as being initially in Salem, Charlestown, Boston, and Cambridge, then in Ipswich in 1636, and finally in North Andover in 1640. The Massachusetts Bay Company, a group headed up by Governor John Winthrop, which initially had attempted to set up on the northern bank of the Charles River but had been unable to locate a good supply of water there, landed on what was then being referred to as “Blaxton’s Peninsula” due to the Reverend William Blaxton’s (Blackstone’s) hermit cottage and orchard there, with its good water supply. During this their 1st year in their new “Boston” settlement they would annex Pullen Point, the mainland peninsula across Pudding 3 Gut from Deer Island that eventually would become Chelsea. It was important that these guys had something to drink. When they had set sail for the New World, they had taken care to carry with them 42 tons of beer, 14 tons of water, and 10,000 gallons of wine. They were accustomed to a Europe in which it was not safe to drink ground water, due to extensive contamination — and expected without thinking much about it that the same conditions of contamination would of course prevail at their destination. MASSACHUSETTS BAY 3. Folk etymology says that the point was “Pullen” and the gut was “Pudding” because the tide used to run so strong there that mariners, sailing against that tide, would have to leap out onto the beach with a line and pull their boats along. –That is, that “Pullen” and “Pudding” are degraded forms of “pulling” or “pull ’em.” Whatever. This point would be renamed Point Shirley by real estate speculators in 1753 in honor of Governor William Shirley’s going along with it being given to them to develop into a locale for their fancy summer beach cottages. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK The Governor in place in Salem, John Endecott, found himself automatically superseded by this newly arrived Governor John Winthrop, who had already been elected governor before departure of that group from England. It appears that this newly arrived governor had brought with him in the Arbella a new eating tool, the “forke” (at least, at the point of his death in 1649 a fork would be listed in the inventory of his estate, although it is also possible that he had not received this implement until 1633 in a case sent to him by E. Howes “containing an Irish skeayne or knife, a bodekyn & a forke for the useful applycation of which I leave to your discretion”). In a later timeframe, the Reverend William Hubbard would have his own imitable comments on this “lustre of years” in the history of New England. CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE READ HUBBARD TEXT HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK Chapter XXI. Of the affairs of religion in the Massachusetts Colony, in New England, during the first lustre of years after the first attempt for the planting thereof; from the year 1625 to the year 1630. Chapter XXII. Transactions of the Patentees at London after the Patent was obtained; debates about carrying it over; transportation of the Patentees and many others, in the year 1630. Chapter XXIII. The proceedings of the Patentees at South-Hampton, when they took their leave of England; the solemn manner thereof. Chapter XXIV. The fleet set forth to sea for New England; their passage, and safe arrival there. Chapter XXV. The first planting the Massachusetts Bay with towns, after the arrival of the Governor and company that came along with him; and other occurrents that then fell out. 1630, 1631, 1632. Chapter XXVI. The first Courts kept in the Massachusetts, after the coming over of the Governor. The carrying on of their civil affairs, from the year 1630 to 1636, with the accusations against them before the King and Council. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK Winthrop was quick to figure out that “Salem, where we landed, pleased us not.” They would attempt in the following six weeks or so to settle at what is now Charlestown, with some of them going on to start seven other townsites in the bay area. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great-great-great-grandfather William Hathorne (1607-1681) had arrived on the Arbella, settling first in Dorchester in New England and then moving to Salem. He would serve as a Major in wars against the Americans and become a Magistrate and Judge of the Puritans, and would have Friend Anne Coleman whipped out of the town for being a Quaker: naked from the waist upward, and bound to the tail of a cart, is dragged through the Main-street at the pace of a brisk walk, while the constable follows with a whip of knotted cords. A strong-armed fellow is that constable; and each time that he flourishes his lash in the air, you see a frown wrinkling and twisting his brow, and, at the same instant, a smile upon his lips. He loves his business, faithful officer that he is, and puts his soul into every stroke, zealous to fulfill the injunction of Major Hawthorne’s warrant, in the spirit and to the letter. There came down a stroke that has drawn blood! Ten such stripes are to be given in Salem, ten in Boston, and ten in Dedham; and, with those thirty stripes of blood upon her, she is to be driven into the forest.... Heaven grant that, as the rain of so many years has wept upon it, time after time, and washed it all away, so there may have been a dew of mercy, to cleanse this cruel blood-stain out of the record of the persecutor’s life! The Covenant of Salem: We, whose names are here underwritten, being by [God’s] most wise and good providence brought together into this part of America, in the Bay of Massachusetts; and desirous to unite into one congregation or church, under the Lord Jesus Christ, our head, in such sort as becometh all those whom he hath redeemed, and sanctified unto himself, do hereby solemnly and religiously, as in his most holy presence, promise and bind ourselves to walk in all our ways according to the rule of the Gospel, and in all sincere conformity to his holy ordinances, and in mutual love and respect to each other, so near as God shall give us grace. To oversimplify perhaps, the town meeting solved the problem of enforcement by evading it. The meeting gave institutional expression to the imperatives of peace. In the meetings consensus was reached, and individual consent and group opinion were placed in the service of social conformity. — Michael W. Zuckerman, ALMOST CHOSEN PEOPLE: OBLIQUE BIOGRAPHIES IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN, HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1993, page 59 Governor John Winthrop wrote his son John Winthrop, Jr. in England for ordinary suet or tallow, a material not available locally which he would presumably have needed for the making of candles. (One can see in his picture here, just how badly the governor was in need of those candles. :-) For most nations, wars are about power and self-interest, but for Americans, they have always been about righteousness. American look at war as an epic struggle between good and evil. As Dubya recently put the matter, it is up to our nation “to defend the hopes of all mankind.” This sort of attitude began long before we were a nation, for in this year Governor Winthrop planted a great Biblical aspiration on American soil: “We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” (His colonists would soon launch a war against Indian “devil worshippers.” In the decisive battle, a Puritan militia would set fire to the Pequot village at Fort Mystic and kill hundreds of men and women as they ran out of the flames. The bodies of so many “frying in the fire,” according to William Bradford, would seem “a sweet sacrifice to God.” The anxieties of the Indian conflicts would led the society straight into internal hunts for “witches.”) “There is only one way to accept America and that is in hate; one must be close to one’s land, passionately close in some way or other, and the only way to be close to America is to hate it; it is the only way to love America.” — Lionel Trilling DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Nathaniel Hawthorne “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1688 November: In the records of the Salem Quarterly Court, for which Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ancestor Major John Hathorne was the magistrate, we learn that an unmarried female who had given birth to an illegitimate child was duly punished: Hester Craford, for fornication with John Wedg, as she confessed, was ordered to be severely whipped and that security be given to save the town from the charge of keeping the child. In about this period (?), “many, many years” after the putative events of May 1649, in Boston, Hester Prynne, she of THE SCARLET LETTER, fictionally dies and is fictionally buried next to the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in King’s Chapel burying ground. THE SCARLET LETTER: So said Hester Prynne, and glanced her sad eyes downward at the scarlet letter. And, after many, many years, a new grave was delved, near an old and sunken one, in that burial- ground beside which King’s Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tomb- stone served for both. All around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate –as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport– there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald’s wording of which may serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow: – “ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES” KING’S CHAPEL HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK