Category Archives: Shakers

A Shaker Service

Posted on by

The New York State Museum has been running a variety of programs relating to the Shakers (which settled first near Albany. The village, called Niskayuna and then Waterlviet, is so close to the airport that some of the fields now lie under runways. But I digress)

This past Saturday, the Museum held a program featuring Shaker songs and the dances – if they can be called that – that were a part of the Shaker services. Not for the Shakers did a service consist of sitting in a pew. Although the songs and movements chosen for audience participation were simple – had to be I think – it was pretty clear to me that the services must have been physically demanding. Considering they were farmers, they must have been in good shape!

The service was engaging and I did not expect to be as moved as I was.

The Museum has a number of other programs this spring. I know I can’t participate in all of them – I don’t get out of work until after 4 – I am hoping to attend some of the others. This fascinating group was so much more than furniture – as perfect as it was.

Audiobooks and narrators

Posted on by

I am very excited and happy to announce I have selected a new audio book narrator for “Cradle to Grave” and “Death in Salem”. As any librarian will tell you, audiobooks are very very popular. A good narrator can really make a story shine. I am very glad to see both these titles become audiobooks for all my patrons.

Midwifery – and Witchcraft?

Posted on by

As Lydia, one of the principle characters (married to my detective Will Rees) prepares to deliver their first baby, my thoughts turned to births. In that time both maternal and infant mortality was high. It was not uncommon for a man to be buried in a church yard with several wives.

Most women, especially those in the country, had their babies delivered by a midwife. For one thing, it was considered indecent for a man to witness the birth. Male physicians were just beginning to make inroads in delivering babies in the cities. Thousands of women who were burned in Europe as witches were midwives and healers . Why? Well. everyone knew women, who were ill-educated to begin with,  were too stupid to learn something like this so the knowledge had to have a supernatural origin, i.e. the Devil. This in spite of the fact that midwives have been part of human history for millennia and there were less deaths when midwives delivered the babies. They washed their hands. Male doctors, according to the history I’ve read, did not and they passed bacteria from one woman to another, with maternal death following.

What did midwives do? Think about this: there were no pain killers other than alcohol and opium and anyway it was thought women should suffer. After all, they were guilty of listening to the serpent in the Garden of Eden and persuading Adam to eat the forbidden apple. Queen Victoria popularized pain killers during birth. (Smart woman).

There were no stethoscopes. They were not invented until 1816 and then looked like a long tube. Forceps were invented centuries earlier but were risky. Obstetric tools discovered in 1813 included forceps used by a male physician so they were known and used by then.

But midwives helped with the breathing, cut the cord, and some experienced midwives could turn a baby who was in a breech position. After the birth, they cleaned the baby, removing the mucous from nose and mouth, and made sure the cry was robust. Usually the midwife had an apprentice or two.

Now, with an interest in ‘natural birth’, we have come full circle back to midwives.

 

Salem tunnels late eighteenth century

Posted on by

So there were already some tunnels in Salem linking the fine houses, the docks, the brothels and the counting houses. Many of the men who had made their fortunes running privateers became Senators, a Secretary of State, and other wealthy and influential men. As Salem shipping  imported cargo from Russia, India, the East Indies, and finally China, Salem became not only the sixth largest city in the U.S. but the wealthiest.  Custom duties to a large degree supported the Federal Government.

To collect these duties during the time Rees visited Salem, the merchant ships were required to tie up about three miles out. The customs inspector would row out to inspect the cargo and assess the duties. Do I believe that this prevented smuggling? Not a chance. I’m sure a number of shippers found ways to circumvent these efforts and used the already existing tunnels to transport goods to the counting houses out of sight of the prying eyes.

In 1801 Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States and began, not only enforcing the already existing laws on the books but put in new strict laws on the collection of duties. The harbor was silting up and New Bedford, Boston, and other ports would soon become more prominent. Elias Haskell Derby Jr. found it difficult to maintain his lifestyle.  He embarked on a building program in the Commons, and put in tunnels to the wharves, the counting houses and the banks. But isn’t 1801 is several years after Death in Salem? Yes, that is so but a number of the houses listed as having tunnels connected to them were built before 1797.

I made a leap and decided to claim there were many tunnels prior to the Derby scion in 1801. The tunnels would have been helpful during the Revolutionary War and the British incursion, especially when it would have been important to move goods without British knowledge.

Finally, my excuse for this bit of slippery history is: Well, the story is fiction and I think the tunnels could have been there and been used as I described.

Witches of Salem

Posted on by

October is an appropriate time to discuss this part of our nation’s past. In fact, when people think of Salem, they think of the witch trials in 1692. Salem has a much longer and interesting history. My character, Will Rees, visits Salem slightly more than one hundred years later. But the memory of those trials and the witches are present in physical reminders even today.

First, I want to note that reparations were made to the families in the early 1700’s. This does not mean that belief in witches and witchcraft ended. It did not. Accusations and trials continued to the early 1800’s. Mother Ann Lee, the spiritual force behind the Shakers, was arrested on a charge of blasphemy in the 1780’s and could have been hung as a witch. However, it was upstate New York, and almost exactly one hundred years later and she was eventually released.

What happened in Salem?

Well, it is believed the witch hysteria began in the household of Reverend Samuel Parris. A slave called Tituba told stories of her religion which featured voodoo and folk magic to the girls in the  household. One of the practices was the baking of a Witch Cake (one of the ingredients being the urine of the girls – yuck) that was then fed to a dog. Another ingredient was rye.

Since a fungus grows on rye during wet conditions and that fungus produces a toxin that is similar to LSD, rye has been implicated in not only the witch hysteria here but in Europe as well. Perhaps I am looking at it from the perspective of a twenty-first century woman but my first question when I was going on the tours was why these so called responsible adults were listening to a bunch to teenage girls. I’d be instantly suspicious I can tell you.

In any event, before it was over, 150 people were imprisoned and 19 people – and two dogs- were hanged. One man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death. He cursed all future Sheriffs of Salem to die of some chest (respiratory) illness. Apparently most have, but in an era without antibiotics (forget about good hygiene or healthy food) I don’t think that is surprising.IMG_2520 IMG_2555

Salem offers a number of dioramas and costumed reenactments of this period.

The groundhog is no more

Posted on by

Yesterday the groundhog came out of its burrow while the dog was outside. Shelby immediately took off after the groundhog and cornered it by the fence. After a battle, Shelby killed the groundhog.

Although I really wanted the groundhog to go away, I feel terrible now. I am thankful that I did not witness the fight. My husband did and said it was brutal.

It remains to be seen if we have a colony of if that was the only one.

I find it ironic that I, someone who writes murder mysteries, could be so upset by the death of a pest rodent.

Cooking – Colonial Style

Posted on by

One of the comments I received on my baking thread concerned other kinds of cooking. I think you can see from my books that bacon (and pork in general) was an important staple. Every one except the poorest owned at least one pig. Descriptions of the times talk about the feral pigs that ran through the city streets (of big cities like Philadelphia and Boston) living on the garbage in the streets. Besides the yuck factor (it must have been a lot of garbage and does anyone else think of the awful smell?) the thought of all those pigs is pretty unsettling. In the countryside too, especially on the frontier, pigs were allowed to roam. I guess there were feral pigs back then just as there are now in the Carolinas.

But I digress.

Besides pork, people ate a wide variety of protein. Chickens were eaten when they no longer lay eggs and a chicken Sunday dinner was a tradition. Game was very important. OK, so one thinks of deer, turkeys and other wild birds, the feral pigs, but turtles? It’s true. One of the recipes from that period begins: Catch a turtle.

It continues: Hang him by the hind fins until all the blood drains. I will spare the sensibilities of my readers and not continue with the rest of the instruction. I pride myself on eating pretty much anything but I confess I draw the line at turtles.

Desserts – 18th century style

Posted on by

I use a reproduction of the earliest American cookbook to guide my descriptions of food in my Will Rees mystery series. As discussed in earlier posts, there are not a lot of recipes for the kind of cakes and quick breads we know. Most of the recipes are highly spiced, probably to hide the bitter taste of pearl ash. I am beginning to think that the invention of baking powder should be up there along with indoor plumbing and central heating.

So what did they eat for desserts? Those who say fresh fruit may be only half right. Puddings, as discussed in Dickens, seem to be a huge favorite. The dessert we know and call pudding is actually called custard.Pudding, at this time, was a boiled dessert with sugar and spices. Think plum pudding which is boiled in a form or special cloth and is too sweet and rich for a modern palate. Interesting note: one of the desserts listed is potato pudding!

There are lots of recipes for pie- and without a good leavening agent this makes sense. Also, not only fruit but slices of pumpkin, lemons and other stuffs were put between the pastry layers as were various kinds of meats. I tried the sliced lemon pie and although it is very sugary I found it quite tart. The lemon gel under meringue is a huge improvement. I wonder how the pumpkin pie is since the pumpkin is not pureed but added to the crust in slices.

Those who talk about fat and sugar consumption now should read some of these recipes. Loaf cake starts: Rub 6 pounds of sugar (or fugar in the type set of the times), 2 pounds of lard, 3 pounds of butter, 12 pounds of flour, 18 eggs — well, you get the picture. Obviously this recipe is for loaf cakes for a large group.

One of the desserts we don’t see in the modern US is syllabub. This may have to do with the ingredients. One recipe begins: start with two parts cream to one part wine. Another begns: take a pint of cream and sweeten it to your palate. This dessert is usually drunk. I can only guess at the number of calories. I have had it in England, where it is still consumed as a dessert and it tasted like alcoholic whipped cream.

One element used to lighten some of the baked goods is egg whites, which have to beaten by hand. One recipe says beat for half an hour. If I had to spend this much time beating egg whites my family would never have cake.

More about American music

Posted on by

When my husband and I were in Greece this past summer and went down to breakfast that first morning, a woman at a nearby table suddenly burst into a James Brown song. No lyrics, just the hook, bookended by a flood of Greek.

Although we haven’t had members of the native populations bursting into song in other countries, we have heard American music everywhere. Perhaps I should say American/British since the Stones and Led Zeppelin are well represented. As tourists, we hear plenty of the native Greek or Peruvian or other local music but the pop music is all the music we grew up with. And even the Stones and other British Bands we hear have been heavily influenced by the Blues, R and B and so on.

American music is one of our greatest exports, along with our movies.

And the interesting thing is that the ‘melting pot’ of the United States is really obvious in the music. From the Chansons Profanes of the French trappers, to the work songs (the sea shanties and field hollers), the drums of the Native Americans and of course the rhythmic music of the black slaves, American music is a combination that has really gone everywhere. (Think the popularity of Metallica in Japan!)

The history of rock from its beginnings in Blues is well documented but of course there have been other important influences, all ending up in James Brown sung by a Greek.