By Jeremy Dibbell

Among the other recent interesting finds our Preservation Librarian Kathy Griffin has made in the Society’s pre-1900 archives is a 25 June 1860 note from Dr. Charles G. Greene of Boston, which accompanied his donation of a razor used by John and John Quincy Adams:

“A razor, purchased in Paris, (France) in 1778 or 9 by John Adams, afterwards President of the U. States; used by him & by his son John Quincy Adams, on their august faces; transmitted by the latter to his kinsman, Mr. — Greenleaf, of Quincy, & by him to his son Wm C. Greenleaf, an intimate friend & chum of the undersigned. In 1829 Wm. C. Greenleaf presented it to me.

Through the varied phases of its existence, it has been in constant use in smoothing the faces of its different owners, & though costing, originally only one franc, was worth a hecatomb* of the best razors, ever manufactured by the celebrated makers of Barber, Greaves, Butcher or Westleholm.”

Our Curator’s files describe the razor as “steel blade, incised with partial maker’s mark on one side: STY…REFINED, with protein based handle (horn, baleen or antler) having three small brass inlays on front side.” They also suggest that Dr. Greene’s description is not quite accurate: the razor is English, made around 1780.

* hecatomb – OED says this properly means “an offering of a hundred oxen,” but loosely was used to refer to “a large number or quantity.”

By Jeremy Dibbell

Another new arrival to our display shelves is Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn: Paul Revere and the Growth of American Enterprise (just published by Johns Hopkins University Press), written by Robert Martello, associate professor of history of science and technology at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. Martello held two MHS research fellowships in the late 1990s, and his work draws heavily on the Revere Family papers.

By Jeremy Dibbell

After my post last week on a Revolutionary War biscuit, our Curator of Art reported that there were some other examples of baked goods in the MHS collections at various points.

In December 1920 the children of Massachusetts’ Civil War governor John A. Andrew gave the Society a large collection of “relics” presented to their father by returning soldiers. Among these were “two specimens of the ‘daily bread’ furnished to Union prisoners in Libby Prison, brought away by a paroled prisoner.” Unfortunately the two pieces of bread were accidentally thrown out in 1990 while on exhibit loan to an Iowa historical organization.

But we do have a piece of petrified bread said to be from the Siege of Paris, 1870-1871. This is among historian Francis Parkman’s assorted memorabilia removed from the study in his Jamaica Plain home, and came with other Parkman artifacts as a gift of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 16 January 1984. And here it is:

By Jeremy Dibbell

Our Preservation Librarian, Kathy Griffin, is sorting through the pre-1900 MHS Archives, and has been coming across some really interesting pieces of correspondence, among which is this 1856 letter from Joseph Mills of Needham, MA:

I, Joseph Mills, was the Son of David Mills; Born in the Town of Needham Co of Norfolk, State of Mass, Sept. 7th, 1773.

At the Lexington Battle, my Father belonged to a company of Minute Men, when the alarm was given He repaired to the scene of action; the history of the day will tell what befell the Needham Minute-Men; He followed the British to their encampment that night in Charlestown, enlisting orders being out next day, He enlisted for three months came home to His Family got some clothes, & returned to the camp in Cambrige [sic]. (He was also at Bunker Hill Battle,) Ever ready to serve His Country, He went as a volunteer to Newport RI, to drive the British from there. When His Country again called for His services, He enlisted again & went to York State, was at the taking of Burgoyne the 17th of Oct, 1777, after Burgoyne’s army surrendered, He said the American soldiers were fed from the British stores, & when the American Army disbanded, & the American Soldiers were returning Home, they took British bread in their Napsacks to eat on their way, My Father thought He would fetch some of the Bread home to let People see what Soldiers had to eat.

When I was a Boy & Frequently used to see My Father show that Bread to strangers & old Soldiers who frequently visited Him, one in particular would say, why, Mills, have you got that Biscuit yet? In company with Him, while looking over His papers, in the year 1803, He took out that Biscuit, & said to me Joseph, here is a relic of the Revolution, bought with the price of Blood, You take & keep it, it may be of some consequence as a curiosity in future years.

From that time until the present, I have kept it, thinking to present it so some Soc who would present me a suitable reward.

The above facts as near as my memory serves me, I am ready to confirm by oath; & as I am now confined to a sick-bed, hope no one would dispute my statements.

Dictated by Myself, & written by my Daughter.

Needham Aug 30th 1856.

[signed] Joseph Mills

Samuel Abbott Green, the MHS Librarian from 1868 through 1918, has written on the back of the letter “This biscuit that came with this note was destroyed by worms, and the note itself barely escaped the same fate.”

So does Mills’ story check out? Could his father have indeed been at Lexington, Bunker Hill, Saratoga, and Newport? Turning to Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, Volume X (Boston: 1902) we find five entries for David Mills (pp. 791-792), and it looks like they may all be referring to Joseph’s father. David Mills is listed as a private in Captain Robert Smith’s company at the time of the 19 April 1775 alarm (service 16 days); a private in Captain Moses Whiting’s company at Cambridge on 5 May 1775 (serving through the end of 1775 and again for four days at the time of the fortification of Dorchester Heights in March 1776); a private in Captain Aaron Smith’s company from 15 August – 29 November 1777 when the company “marched to reinforce Northern army” around Saratoga; a private in Captain Ebenezer Battles’ company from 23 March – 5 April 1778; and a private in Captain Ebenezer Everet’s company from 1 August – 14 September 1778 on the expedition to Rhode Island. Quite a record, that!

The vital records of Needham indicate that David was born 26 December 1743 to David and Jemima (Tolman) Mills. He married Elizabeth Hunting 30 August 1770, and lived until 12 January 1824. From the records it looks like at least a couple of David’s brothers (Ezra, Joseph) may also have enlisted during the Revolution.

Joseph Mills’ letter to the MHS was read at the 11 September 1856 meeting of the Society, according to the Proceedings (III:112), but alas, the biscuit did not withstand the ravages of time.

By Jeremy Dibbell

Another of the new publications featuring an MHS collection is Castorland Journal: An Account of the Exploration and Settlement of Northern New York State by French Émigrés in the Years 1793 to 1797, by Simon Desjardins and Pierre Pharoux. This edition, just published by Cornell University Press, was edited by John A Gallucci, Assistant Professor of French at Colgate University, and contains a very useful introduction, footnotes, and appendices.

Desjardins and Pharoux were agents of the French Compagnie de New York, sent to manage the company’s Castorland tract in what are today Lewis and Jefferson Counties. The journal recounts their travels, business meetings (with the likes of Philip Schuyler, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr) and the many obstacles they faced.

The original Castorland journal was given to the Historical Society in September 1863 by William Appleton, after having been found and purchased in a Paris bookstall. Our Proceedings (Vol. VII, p. 145) record “The President [Robert C. Winthrop] presented, on behalf of William Appleton, Esq., a volume, chiefly in manuscript, entitled ‘Journal de Castorland, – Relation du Voyage et des Etablissements des Emigrés Français dans l’Amérique Septentrionale,’ &c., 1793-1796. Voted, That the thanks of the Society be presented to Mr. Appleton for this acceptable donation.”

Gallucci’s edition of Castorland Journal is currently on our display shelves in the library for easy access, and the original journal (catalog record) is here and available for use on microfilm.

By Jeremy Dibbell

In honor of Bastille Day, a snippet of an interesting letter from our collections which speaks to the topic. Writing to John Adams on 11 January 1816, Thomas Jefferson looked back on the eighteenth century, agreeing with Adams that the period “witnessed the sciences and arts, manners and morals, advanced to a higher degree than the world had ever before seen.” But, he writes, at the end of the century, Europe fell back into its old ways: “How then has it happened that these nations, France especially and England, so great, so dignified, so distinguished by science and the arts, plunged at once into all the depths of human enormity, threw off suddenly and openly all the restraints of morality, all sensation to character, and unblushingly avowed and acted on the principle that power was right? … Was it the terror of the monarchs, alarmed at the light returning on them from the West, and kindling a Volcano under their thrones? Was it a combination to extinguish that light, and to bring back, as their best auxiliaries, those enumerated by you, the Sorbonne, the Inquisition, the Index expurgatorius, and the knights of Loyola? Whatever it was, the close of the century saw the moral world thrown back again to the age of the Borgias, to the point from which it had departed 300. years before.”

Going on to speak about France specifically, Jefferson admits that his initial impressions of the French Revolution had been mistaken: “Your prophecies to Dr. Price proved truer than mine; and yet fell short of the fact, for instead of a million, the destruction of 8. or 10. millions of human beings has probably been the result of these convulsions. I did not, in 89. believe they would have lasted so long, nor have cost so much blood.”

“But,” Jefferson continues, “altho’ your prophecy has proved true so far, I hope it does not preclude a better final result. That same light from our West seems to have spread and illuminated the very engines employed to extinguish it. It has given them a glimmering of their rights and their power. The idea of representative government has taken root and growth among them. … Opinion is power, and that opinion will come. Even France will yet attain representative government.”

By Jeremy Dibbell

A very interesting Object of the Month essay this month by my colleague and occasional Beehive contributor Anna Cook – the object from our collections is a broadsheet handout for marchers in a 16 October 1915 Boston parade for woman suffrage in Massachusetts. It includes instructions for the parade, plus (on the verso) songs to be sung during the march and at the rally following. The parade, organized by the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, included some 15,000 marchers!

Anna’s accompanying essay offers a brief overview of the struggle for the vote in Massachusetts, including a glimpse at anti-suffrage organizations such as the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women (I doubt they used the acronym, since MAOFESW doesn’t quite roll off the tongue).

To find out what happened when Massachusetts men were asked to amend the state constitution in November 1915 and allow women the vote, read the conclusion to Anna’s essay, here.

By Jeremy Dibbell

Our June Object of the Month is an 1862 advertising broadside for a return visit to Boston by the “Aztec Children,” Maximo and Bartola. The pair had made an initial appearance in Boston in 1850, and toured the world for at least four decades, sometimes under the management of P.T. Barnum. They were billed as “descendants and specimens of the Sacerdotal Caste (now nearly extinct) of the Ancient Aztec Founders of the Ruined Temples of that Country,” but were in reality microcephalic siblings from San Salvador whose mother thought she was sending them to America to be cured, not exhibited.

See the broadside, and read the whole story as told by our Senior Cataloger, Mary Fabiszewski, here.