This article features a photographic glimpse of the Tapleyville - Holten Street neighborhood of about 100 years ago.

141 Holten Street ca. 1900

In 2005 the Archival Center received a large gift of family papers, eight photograph albums dating up to about 1935, and several hundred loose photos and negatives relating to the large Rundlett family of Danvers. Donated by John Hardy Wright of Salem, a well known appraiser, author and antiquarian, the material was catalogued and stored. Among the gift were a number of 2 ½” x 3 ½” negatives. Recently we asked Finer Image Photo Lab on Park Street to process a group of these negatives as 4” x 6” prints for inclusion in the Rundlett collection. The prints are very revealing about domestic life in a Danvers neighborhood about one hundred years ago. They show the Fred M. and Mary Rundlett family living at 132 Holten Street and members of their extended family which lived in at least two other houses close by on Holten Street.

Fred Rundlett was a shoecutter born in Danvers in 1866. He and Mary had three children including Hollis E. who was born December 31, 1898. A sample of these snapshot photos reproduced here reveal: a view of the 1855 Gothic Revival style house built for Dr. Jesse W. Snow at 141 Holten Street. The house still stands today, though now missing its board & batten siding and gingerbread vergeboards. In another image a baby peers from in a wicker laundry basket with a high-style wicker baby carriage topped by a dainty parasol nearby. The baby is tended to by a woman wearing a leg-o’-mutton sleeve blouse. In another photo two men enjoy the air sitting on a wooden yard swing. Fred Rundlett sits at right with son Hollis between the men and all gussied up in a formal maritime style “Middie” suit. In a vertical snapshot, the local grocery man in bibbed trousers is bringing an order from his enclosed delivery wagon into the Rundlett house. In the background can be seen the side of the ca. 1854 house originally owned by William Robotham at 130 Holten Street. The other vertical photograph shows Hollis feeding the family chickens in front of the wall tent he used for military play with his friends. Hollis wears a loose fitting frock and short trousers. These and other early 1900s snapshot “slices of reality” reveal to us some features which still survive in Danvers, as well as many features of life, style and technology that have changed forever.

April 2009 

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A New Witchcraft Book

The topic of 1692 Salem witchcraft remains a popular subject in both American history and literature, as well as with the national media. This month marks the culmination of a major witchcraft publication project in which the Peabody Institute Library and Danvers Archival Center have been intimately involved for the last 8 years. The book, Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt is just published by Cambridge University Press and weighs in at 11 lbs. and containing over 1,000 pages. The tome is the first comprehensive transcription of all surviving legal documents relating to the Salem witch events running from February 1692 to the end of 1693. A great many of these events took place in what is now Danvers and known in 1692 as Salem Village.

Professor Bernard Rosenthal, author of Salem Story (1993) and professor at State University of New York at Binghampton was familiar with a book I had produced in 1992 during the 300th anniversary of the witchcraft events. Titled The Devil Hath Been Raised, this book was initially underwritten by the Danvers Historical Society as a fund raiser and included new transcriptions of the surviving witchcraft records of March 1692, the first month of the witch outbreak. For the first time in publishing history, I had arranged these legal records in chronological order. Professor Rosenthal asked if I would be interested in participating in a new edition of the over 1,000 witchcraft papers, and he accepted the challenge to have the edition reflect the chronological use of these legal documents. Library Director Doug Rendell and the Board of Trustees agreed to the participation of the Peabody Institute Library and the Archival Center, the only non-collegiate institution to become a co-sponsor. The project eventually attracted 11 international scholars as associate editors, including linguists and historians from the United States, Finland and Sweden. Assisting locally were library staff members Eva Veilleux and Mary Jane Wormstead, as well as Ethel Trask.

A major accomplishment of this work includes publishing over 40 newly discovered witchcraft documents never before printed in such a work. A later edition of TheDevil Hath Been Raised had included 17 documents or fragments of legal records discovered by me over the years. These documents were incorporated into the new edition, as well as several dozen additional documents located by the editors in other obscure and previously unearthed sources. These newly located documents, including examinations of 5 accused witches, depositions, and indictments, add important new knowledge to our understanding of the witchcraft events.

New transcriptions of all the known documents were also made correcting many previous omissions and errors. Explanatory notes were also produced about the documents, including their often multiple use in various of the legal procedures in which accused persons often went through the process of a preliminary hearing, grand jury and finally a trial. Another first for this edition is the identity of many of the transcribers of the documents through handwriting analysis. These identifications reveal insights of who recorded what, when.

Augmenting the documentary record is an appendix with brief biographical notes on all the hundreds of persons mentioned in these documents. The front matter includes several essays. General Editor Rosenthal wrote the historical introduction, while six of the professors contributed to a linguistic essay. I contributed an introductory essay outlining the legal procedures used during the witch trials and a brief history of the previous published versions of these records.

The book’s dust jacket features a portion of a title page of one of the contemporary books on witchcraft, the facsimile taken from a book within the Danvers Archival Center’s rare book collection, for which the Archives received a fee.

The project continued over many years in spurts of intense activity, followed by calmer periods. I and several of the editors, including Rosenthal, Margo Burns and Benjamin Ray of the University of Virginia, were able to spend many hours examining the original documents, including finding where through ink changes the document had been added to at various times during the legal procedures, and where various documents had been cut and separated. Determining the original dates of creation of these documents, many of which were not dated, included interesting historic detective work.

The $150 book can be used as a reference book or read as an unfolding narrative of the events of 1692. Copies should be available for patron reference within the month both in the Archive and in the Reference collections. The volume’s production is a major event in the intellectual history of the understanding of the 1692 witchcraft events, and a proud and important contribution by our public library and town archives.

February 2009

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High School Spirit 1935

In the fall of 1935 seventeen members of the Holten High School baton squad posed on the front steps of the Richmond Junior High School entrance on Conant Street. The squad marched with the High School band, performing at Saturday football half- times and the traditional Thanksgiving game, as well as during rallies and parades. Mr. Ollie Ahearn privately instructed squad members on the twirling and throwing techniques of the heavy batons for 25¢ per hour. The batons, with their large bulbous wooden heads, made for a dramatic scene if spun into the air and then caught with grace and style. The squad members are clothed in long woolen skirts, bobby sox and a variety of light colored footwear. Most sport handmade knit berets and they all proudly wear the traditional “Big D” Danvers blue sweaters designating their hometown.

Among the young ladies posing here are sisters Dorothy S. Kimball (later Kraft) and Flora L. Kimball (later Curtis) in the middle row 2 nd and 3 rd from the right; Henrietta Newbegin (later Sears) in the back row 2 nd from the right; and my aunt Carolyn Esty Trask (later Foster) in the back row middle. Carolyn was the first of several generations of family women who proudly performed with the baton squad, including her younger sister Margery, future daughter-in-law Ann Frazier, nieces Diane Bockus and Ethel Boghosian (drum majorette) and grandniece Elizabeth Trask (captain). By the early 1990s the baton squad had evolved into a rifle & flag squad, the carried objects still used for intricate visual twirling effects.

November 2008 

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Politics 1840

The collections of the Danvers Archival Center include valuable and historically important materials that directly relate to our local, regional and national history, as well as simple, ephemeral items that reflect some phase of local culture, and eras now past. Here is the story of one new item just recently donated to the town by a local couple:

It is fitting during the national campaign frenzy just prior to the 2008 Presidential election that we spotlight a local presidential election badge used in a similar campaign 168 years ago. We might think that the current rhetoric calls for change and reform are new and that the negative campaigning we see in print or on T.V. are features of modern America. Think again! The 1840 Presidential campaign between sitting Democrat President Martin Van Buren and Whig candidate William Henry Harrison was the first of the “modern” political campaigns wherein slogans, huge rallies, massive campaign literature drops and smear tactics against one’s opponent became a regular part of Presidential elections.

The Van Buren administration inherited a weak national economy and became plagued by high inflation, numerous business failures and significant unemployment. This economic down-turn became known as “The Panic of 1837,” and the sitting President did little to manage the ongoing economic crisis. The new Whig political party saw in these bad times the possibility of capturing the White House. They nominated southerner and Indian War hero William Henry Harrison for President and Virginian John Tyler as his running mate.

Van Buren, a well-to-do New Yorker and protégée of Andrew Jackson, underestimated the fairly new and untried Whig Party and attempted to portray Harrison as a dull rustic. A partisan Democratic newspaper said of Harrison “Give him a barrel of hard cider and a pension of $2,000 and he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin.”

Though Harrison was of an established Virginian family and enjoyed a luxurious life above that of most of his contemporaries, the Whig “PR” handlers of the time molded his persona into a native “Joe Six Pack” of his era contrasted against an aloof, rich and aristocratic President.

The Whigs went to town flooding the nation with badges, posters, and frenzied public rallies, all extolling the virtues of Harrison as “the common man,” and the “log cabin and hard cider” candidate. Years earlier in 1811 Harrison led soldiers in a victorious battle at Tippecanoe against Indians angry at their loss of Midwestern lands. He then went on to be elected to several state and national offices including that of U.S. Senator.

The Whig campaign took on the catchy slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” to celebrate Harrison as a national hero. In Danvers several local carpenters built a full scale replica of a rustic log cabin, put it on wheels and Perley Tapley had an impressive 40-yoke of oxen pull this campaign image at several area political parades. A barrel of hard cider was part of the float and prospective voters were invited to have a swig in honor of the Whig candidate. The incorrect but perceived public image of Harrison portrayed him as a simple man of the people.

Though the now familiar circular metal pinback political buttons would not come into popular use until the McKinley/Bryan campaigns of the 1890s, supporters in 1840 often wore imprinted silk ribbons pinned to their breasts. The ribbon illustrated here measures 7” by 2½” and was engraved by George Girdler Smith of Boston. The badge features a bust portrait of Harrison below a banner reading “Harrison & Reform,” and with a star and the word “Constitution” above that. Beneath the portrait is a vignette surrounded by a wreath, the image revealing a log cabin scene depicting Harrison at the plow as he greets a former military comrade. In the right background is a shadow image of the Bunker Hill Monument still under construction in 1840 and with the words “Bunker” and “Hill” on either side of the wreath.

This badge was created for wearing at a Harrison Convention to be held at Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts on September 10, 1840. At the top of the badge are the words “Danvers Delegation.” Numerous town Whig supporters attending this political event were identified by their ribbon designation. The Harrison rally of September 10 attracted some 20,000 participants from New England and numerous other states. They gathered at Boston Common and marched eight abreast on a four-mile parade to Bunker Hill. Keynote speaker was Daniel Webster. A heavy rainstorm interrupted the proceedings during which Webster remarked to the crowd, “Any rain gentlemen, but the reign of Martin Van Buren.”

Harrison won the general election in November and on Inauguration Day, March 4, 1841, the newly sworn-in 67-year-old President gave the longest outdoor speech in inaugural history in a cold and wet environment. He soon contracted pneumonia and died a month later on April 4, 1841, the new Vice President John Tyler becoming the tenth President of the United States.

October 2008

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1873 Bank Stock

This month’s item is an ornate stock certificate dating to August 1873 recently acquired by the Archives. Measuring 7” x 10,” the certificate is made out to a woman in Brookline, Massachusetts who acquired three shares in capital stock of the First National Bank in Danvers. The engraved item includes a form of the Massachusetts state seal at lower left and a vignette with two Indians, Lady Liberty and a Revolutionary soldier gazing upon an oval image of the “Father of our Country,” George Washington.

The first bank established in Danvers was the Village Bank, located at the head of Elm Street next to the then location of the Page House. This bank was established by Danvers shoe manufacturers in April 1836. In 1854 a new high style Italianate brick, granite and sandstone bank building was constructed at 17 Maple Street. Of three and one-half stories and possessing an octagonal cupola, this building has served numerous banking establishments into the present. Though the cupola, pitched roof and third floor were all removed by the late 1940s, the first two stories of this building still stands on Maple Street and serves as a branch of the Sovereign Bank.

The original Village Bank was reorganized in October 1864 as a fiduciary trust with the new name of the First National Bank of Danvers and with capital of $150,000. Its president from 1856 until his death in 1886 was local merchant Daniel Richards who operated a Grocery and West India Goods store on Elm Street where the Atrium now stands. His residence was what is now the Lyons Funeral Home at 28 Elm Street, built in 1842. Cashier of the bank was William L. Weston, who served in that position for 43 years, from 1841 to 1884. Both men’s signatures are at the bottom of the stock certificate, with ink slash marks indicating the shares were later cashed in. In 1904 the bank changed its name to the Danvers National Bank.

September 2008

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Danversport 1907

This neat 1907 photographic souvenir of school days in the early 20th century was recently donated to the archives. The item measures 4 ½” x 6” with the photograph mounted under glass and possessing a novelty brass chain framing the image and making it suitable for hanging on a wall. The larger, slightly faded image is that of the Danversport School House which was built on Water Street in 1893-4 in the Colonial Revival architectural style. This school building was the first in a flurry of four new state-of-the-art schools constructed in Danvers during the 1890s. Elisha B. Peabody was the Danvers contractor and the eight classrooms served grades 1 through 8. The school was dedicated on September 1, 1894, and served as an elementary school until 1980. It was later converted into housing and stands today quite similar in exterior design as when it was first built. The wing to the left is one of two main entrances and wood quoins dress the corners of the building, which is painted to accentuate the architectural trim.

The pretty young lady seen in the photo insert which is part of the print itself, is Miss Beatrice E. Moser. The 8-year-old Danversport student was born on Valentine’s Day 1899 and lived with her parents Joseph W. & Emma T. (Regan) Moser at the Story house at 11 Harbor Street, the father a shoemaker. This photo is dated 1907 on the reverse and in September of that year Beatrice enrolled in Abbie E. Stetson’s combined grade 3-4. The class was composed of 48 students who attended 176 ½ school days. During the first 3 months of the school year Beatrice was absent 3 days and tardy 2. In the photograph she stands just to the right of a door to her house and is smartly dressed in a broad brimmed hat and a heavy double breasted lapel coat with sleeves pleated at the shoulders.

In 1907 the town had just hired a new school superintendent, Henry C. Sanborn. The School Board reported that for the last two years Danvers had opened the school year beginning the Monday following Labor Day and that this date “is still an open subject with the Board.” Parents, students and teachers were urged to give an opinion as to when school should be opened, keeping in mind that it must remain in session for 40 weeks. Attendance at Danversport included 256 students being taught by 7 teachers. The salary for Danvers teachers had recently been increased to a maximum of $550 and the Board commented that “ Danvers is not fortunate in having large business interests or great wealth in the Town, but we believe we have good schools, and are now enjoying the services of a corps of excellent teachers.”

July 2008

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Vehicular Tax 1794

As the cost of transportation in our own time becomes ever more expensive, this recently donated document shows that vehicular expenses are not new to the United States. The document is a 7 ½” x 6” partially printed receipt was issued in September 1798 to Israel Putnam of Danvers for the tax he had to pay on his vehicle.

In 1794 U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton shepherded through Congress a revenue generating tax “to lay duties upon carriages for the conveyance of persons for private use.” This tax, along with the violently unpopular tax on distilled whiskey, was leveled on a specific class of commodities to help generate income for the new Federal government in the era before individual income tax. The Federal government obtained most of its income through tariffs. This newly conceived tax was directed to the more well-to-do citizens who could afford a personal conveyance. The tax could cost from $1 to $10, a not inconsequential amount at a time when $1 was a common laborers weekly pay. Farm wagons and public conveyance vehicles such as stage coaches were exempt from the tax.

This new tax was not popular and in 1795 it was challenged in court assending all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The petitioners in Hylton v. U.S. claimed this was a direct tax which is prohibited by the Constitution. In March 1796 the Court ruled the levy was an indirect tax in a 3 to 0 opinion, and the tax stood.

This donated receipt was signed by Salem Collector of the Revenue George Osborn, the tax amounting to $3 for a two-wheel chaise drawn by one horse and accommodating only two people. The chaise (French for chair) was a fairly simple carriage often referred to as a “shay.” It was basically a seat with a body composed of wood and leather springs attached to two wheels and covered by a “Fallback” hood that could be folded down. These lightweight, springed vehicles were useful on the rutted New England dirt roads.

The chaise owner was Danversite Israel Putnam (1743-1825) who was the son of Col. David Putnam and nephew to the recently deceased famed American folk hero General Israel Putnam (1718-1790). The Danvers chaise owner was a successful farmer and resided in the Putnam house now numbered 431 Maple Street and owned by the Danvers Historical Society. This document is one of a half dozen similar carriage tax receipts found within our various archival collections.

June 2008

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George Peabody

This month’s spotlight from among the collections of the Archival Center is an image of George Peabody just acquired by $20 purchase last week. The image is an albumen photograph mounted on cardstock measuring 4” x 2 ¼” and known as a “carte-de-visite.” These photographic visiting cards were patented beginning in 1854 by Frenchman Andre Disderi who combined the novelty of the new art of photography with portraiture in an inexpensive format. This size photograph fast became the most frequent mode of portrait photography, with the ability of creating multiple copies of the same image. They were popularly exchanged among family and friends and were veraciously collected, including images of famous people made available for sale by photographers.

Born of humble beginnings in 1795 in the South Parish of Danvers, George Peabody went on to become the most famous local boy of the last half of the nineteenth century. Moving to London he acquired a personal fortune of some 16 million dollars as a merchant banker. Beginning in the 1850s Peabody became the first great American philanthropist, giving in 1852 money to create the Peabody Institute Library. Other gifts included $2.5 million to create housing for London’s poor and $2 million for the assistance of southern education following the Civil War. Peabody donated over $9 million of his estimated worth. He was on hand for the dedication of the Peabody Institute Library of Danvers in July 1869 and died in London in November of the same year. This portrait made by Disderi in London about 1866 shows a dignified Peabody seated with a pair of pince-nez glasses in one hand and a document in the other.

Prior to 1995 the Danvers Archival Center had no carte-de-visite images of Peabody, but thanks to donations and the internet our collection of different carte-de-visite views of Peabody photographed between the 1850s and 60s now numbers over 30.

May 2008

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 Levi Preston

Those who venture into the Archival Center’s reading room will notice several portraits of Danversites hanging on the wall. One of these portraits preserves the features of a man who participated in the birth of American independence.

As an old man of 93 years, Levi Preston (1756-1850) was the subject of an oil-on-canvas painting by famed Danvers artist Abel Nichols in about 1849. Preston had been a farmer most of his life and also served in the elected position of Danvers Selectman. He was a communicant at the First Church, Congregational in Danvers. His leathery face shows a long hard life, though the softness of his eyes reveals a youthful spirit.

Decades earlier, as a youth of 19, Preston had shouldered his musket to march with Captain Samuel Flint’s Company of Militia, and took part in the Lexington Alarm of April 19, 1775. The Danvers men confronted retreating British troops at Menotomy a small village just outside of Cambridge and suffered many casualties, including seven Danvers men killed in the vicious fire fight.

When asked many years after the Lexington Alarm why he had taken up arms against the Mother County, Preston simply but eloquently explained: “What we meant in fighting the British was this – We always had been free and we meant to be free always.”

This valuable portrait was generously donated to the Danvers Archival Center in 1995 by Elizabeth Moody Harris of Washington State.

April 2008