Sorceress (23 page)

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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 trouble 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

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September 1675

My dearest mother,

I received your letter and thank God that Joseph brought the children to you safe and well.

I write this in haste. We are in desperate straits here. Many have crowded in to our house, it being the strongest hereabouts. We have come under attack. The assault was repelled, but we fear another. We were set to leave for the greater safety of Pocumtuck but that is no longer possible. We fear that the enemy is all about and it would be as dangerous for me to leave as to stay. So I do what I can. I will load muskets and fire them if need be. Meanwhile I provide sustenance, and tear sheets into bandages in readiness for the attack that all expect hourly.

The attack came at dawn. A small group, part of a larger party, fell upon us, hoping to find us sleeping no doubt, but we maintain a constant lookout. The Indians were few in number and easily repulsed, although we lost two men: one to a musket ball to the head; the other with an arrow through the throat as he tried to regain the house. Several others were wounded, although only slightly. They lost men also. Four bodies lay strewn about after the attack.

I went to see what help I could give, but all were dead. Among them a man who I took to be their chiefest warrior. I name him such by the stature of his person and by the paint he wore upon his face and by a fine gorget he wore at his throat, woven of white and purple wampum beads, interspersed with discs of silver and beaten copper. One of our men bent to rip this from him and raised his sword as if to hack off his head, declaring, ‘This must be Philip himself!’

I held the man’s arm and begged him to desist. He was disposed to argue with me, saying that he ‘would have his head for that is what the Indians do to our dead’, but I bid him stay his hand and ordered the bodies removed to the edge of the forest.

We expected another attack but it did not come. The Indians appeared merely in order to remove their dead. Then they melted back into the forest and we have not seen them since.

We know not whether they are still lurking there, but we must take our chance. Tobias does not think we could survive if they return and attack in any numbers. We leave today for Pocumtuck. Hoping to be safer there. From whence this will be dispatched onwards.

I do not look for the worst to come to pass, but I have given thought to what I wish to happen if it does. My intentions are thus:

I hope and trust that you will care for my children. Such of my goods as survive should be kept for them. In particular, the box that Joseph conveyed is for Mary Sarah, to be kept for her and handed over on the occasion of her marriage. It and its contents are to be preserved by her, to be passed on to her daughter, and her daughter after, and, if she has none, to the wife of her eldest son. Tell her what you will of the history of the quilt, but tell her, and this most strongly, that it should not be used for everyday purpose. It should serve, as it served me, as cover and comfort to mother and newborn child.

If it is God’s will, then we will meet again.

Until then, I trust in his Great Goodness and remain

ever your loving daughter,

Rebekah

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Extract from Alison Ellman’s notes on Rebekah Morse

Rebekah survived, although the settlement she left did not. Pocumtuck stood alone, the last of the frontier outposts. The other towns around it lay deserted, burnt and wasted. The women and children were evacuated, Rebekah with them, leaving only the men behind to stay and fight. After a vicious skirmish at a place known ever after as Bloody Brook, Pocumtuck was abandoned, its houses burnt, its crops taken. It became a town ‘inhabited by owls’.

Tobias survived to join his wife and children in the comparative safety of Hadley. The loss of home, farm and business must have been a bitter blow to this ambitious young man, but at least he was alive and he meant to build again.