Puritans & Whalers: Reading Coastal Massachusetts
In the weeks leading up to Halloween 2018, my family headed east to Boston and coastal Massachusetts. In addition to the Boston downtown (and all its Freedom Trail historical glory), we visited both Salem and New Bedford, Massachusetts. In preparation for our trip I chose to read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables and Sena Jeter Naslund’s Ahab’s Wife or, the Star-Gazer: a Novel (1999).
Salem, infamous as the site of the Puritan witch trials (winter of 1692-93), was also the birthplace of American writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). Hawthorne immortalizes Salem and its troubling history in his two most famous novels: The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of Seven Gables (1851). The books center on Salem’s Puritan history, a history particularly personal for Hawthorne. John Hathorne presided as a judge during the Salem witch trials (and never repented the nineteen resultant executions); he also happened to be Nathaniel’s great-great-grandfather. Writer Nathaniel changed the spelling of his surname as a young man; many believe he did so to distance himself from this troubling ancestor. Delving into the dark romance at the midst of Seven Gables, I looked forward to comparing the real house of seven gables to the one fictionalized by Hawthorne.
The long-winded, quintessentially nineteenth-century preface defines House of Seven Gables as a Romance (yes, with a capital ‘r’). Hawthorne’s Preface also warms the modern reader up for the verbose, descriptive sentences and paragraphs that melt into chapters in the pages to follow. Once I got past Hawthorne’s nineteenth-century prose, I enjoyed considering that the witch trials were already buried deep in Salem history for Hawthorne (and the main characters of this novel). The descendants of the old Colonel Pyncheon bring to life the narrative of Hawthore’s romance. Like the author perhaps, the characters face a nearly 150-year-old curse based on ills done during the witch trials. In the case of Seven Gables the curse is bound to the Pyncheon family and land claimed by said Colonel from “Old Matthew Maule [… who] was executed for the crime of witchcraft. He was one of those martyrs to that terrible delusion, which should teach us, among its other morals, that the influential classes, and those who take upon themselves to be leaders of the people, are fully liable to all the passionate error that has ever characterized the maddest mob” (15). (See what I mean about Hawthorne’s loquacious prose?) For those who haven’t read this book, I think it is worth reading as its themes are very modern: avarice and greed, hypocrisy and madness, and the redemptive properties of love. I found the youthful artist and lodger of destitute Hepzibah (the latest in the line of Pyncheons occupying Seven Gables and a character, who is nearly comic in her tragic details) most interesting. Holgrave, by name, this artist (and, of course, the love object of rural cousin Phoebe) is the one to heal the curse. As I read the novel, I couldn’t help wonder if Holgrave wasn’t some literary second to Hawthorne himself. Holgrave’s art (daguerreotype, the earliest of photographs produced on silver plate) foretells the villainy of Judge Pyncheon by emphasizing his physical similarity to Colonel Pyncheon (whose massive portrait still resides over the room in which he drowned in his own blood). The contemporary villain of this romance, Cousin Jaffrey (also known as Judge Pyncheon), relives the hubris of his descendant but this time on one from his own family line by accusing his tragic cousin Clifford of murder and later madness. And yet the artists win the day—Clifford and his pursuit of the beautiful, Phoebe and her mysterious, beloved daguerreotypist—and the centuries’ old curse lifts. Perhaps this is Hawthorne’s project in House of Seven Gables: to lift the blood stains on his family by exposing them through Romance.
Upon visiting the House of Seven Gables (yes, it is a real house in the town of Salem), its location surprised me. Hawthorne sets his House of Seven Gables on Pyncheon Street (previously Maule’s Lane) and the only landmarks associated with its location are a spring and a huge elm tree (old Pyncheon Elm). The real House of Seven Gables sits next to the harbor in old Salem. The real house was built in the late seventeen century (1668) by a sea captain (Capt. John Turner) and remained in his family before being acquired by the Ingersoll family (relatives of Nathaniel Hawthorne). It is one of the oldest timber frame structures in North America and with its 17 rooms and nearly 8,000 sq feet, it is no wonder this home of his cousin, Susannah Ingersoll, inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne. Having visited it, I agree that it excites the romantic and is an ideal setting for a story about a generations-old curse.
The other book I read leading up to this trip is set along the Massachusetts coast (and at sea) including New Bedford, MA. Sena Jeter Naslund fictionalizes the biography of Una, a girl who flees life on the Kentucky frontier (and an abusive father) and finds safe harbor at a Massachusetts lighthouse with her uncle and aunt. Years later, the visit of two young men (to update the lighthouse lens) changes Una’s life forevermore. Giles and Kit bring adventure and intellectual pursuit to Una, and they introduce her to notion of going off on her own too. In pursuing her own way in the world, Una runs away, dresses as a boy, and manages to get a position on a whaling ship where she finds herself hiding her gender on the confines of a ship, in the midst of the mighty sea. From its opening sentence—“Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last”—Ahab’s Wife or, The Star-Gazer situates itself in relation to Melville’s classic tome, Moby-Dick (Jeter Naslund even manages to include a mysterious hyphen in her title too). The “Extracts” with which Jeter Naslund begins her novel demonstrate the author has done her homework; she quotes from Margaret Fuller’s 1845 Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Beecher Stowe’s 1851 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Owen Chase’s 1821 Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship Essex of Nantucket, and, of course, numerous passages from Melville’s 1851 Moby-Dick. Christopher Wormell’s 157 beautiful illustrations that adorn Jeter Naslund’s novel both feel nineteenth-century(they are black and white block print) and bring the story to life that much more.
Having now visited the New Bedford Whaling National Historic Park, I know that Ahab’s Wife brilliantly recreates life as it was on a whaling ship and left at home for a sea captain’s wife, and, unlike the canonical Moby-Dick, her novel places a heroine at the heart of the story. Una is a captivating narrator to a story that it is both touching and, at times, unbelievable and deeply troubling. After experiencing the loss and heartbreak of shipwreck, lost love and living with the madness of her beloved, I found myself cheering for Una, hoping life would bring her back to a safe harbor in the end. Needless to say, I loved this novel and encourage anyone interested in nineteenth-century whaler culture (or simply historical fiction) to add it to their to-read list. It is so good that it almost inspires me to pick up Melville’s voluble (he is another nineteenth-century American novelist, after all) masterpiece, although Moby-Dick; or, The Whale will not out seat any of the books above it on my TBR.
Our October travels, and my accompanying reading, did not disappoint. My daughters paraded around Salem in witch hats, visiting the Salem Witch Trials Memorial adjacent to the famous old cemetery, Old Burying Point, where we found the grave of a distant relative amidst those of Mayflower passengers and witch trial judges (including Nathaniel’s great-great-grandfather, John Hawthorn). We wandered the cobblestone streets of New Bedford Whaling National Historic Park and noticed Seamans Bethel (the church featured in Moby-Dick) among the pubs and shops still operating in that history-rich community. As we flew home, I reflected on the whaler and the Puritan cultures so integral to the history of coastal Massachusetts, and by extension, a part of our national identity.
Other Suggested Reading:
Last year I read The Soul of An Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery and published in 2015. It is a fun read about the author’s connection to octopuses (yes, you learn early in the book that they are not octopi as octopus derives from Greek not Latin) at Boston’s New England Aquarium. While on this trip, we experienced a true Nor’Easter of a storm and took refuge at the aquarium where I was thrilled to see the octopuses and the famous green sea turtle, Myrtle, who I recalled from Montgomery’s book. It is another great read and one I would recommend to any lover of marine biology, aquariums, and/or theory of consciousness in philosophy.
Bibliographic Note:
The Hawthorne I quote is from an old copy of The House of Seven Gables (it was my dad’s in childhood, I believe). It was published by Airmont Books, New York (1963).
Naslund, Sena Jeter. Ahab’s Wife or, The Star-Gazer: A Novel. Perennial an Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, New York (1999).
