He distorted body parts

‘Wolverton was a master in caricaturing the human face and body. He distorted body parts while multiplying others. Noses hang on necks, ears stick out of eye sockets, teeth point out in all directions, skins droop to the ground and virtually everyone has blisters or freckles. His characters seem to be made from plasticine rather than bones.’ This how a comic encyclopaedia describes the work of Basil Wolverton, born 110 years ago today. He was one of America’s great mid-20th century comic artists, working for Stan Lee’s (pre-Marvel) Atlas Comics, and for MAD in its early days. But he was also very religious and produced many a biblical illustration. He kept diaries for a year as a child and then regularly during the second half of his life. Although these have not been published, they have been exploited by Greg Sadowski in his recent two-volume and highly illustrated biography of Wolverton.

Wolverton was born on 9 July 1909 in Central Point, Oregon, but his family later moved to Vancouver, Washington. His parents, though religious, divorced when he was a teenager. An older sister died around the same time, which led the young Wolverton to abandon his faith for a decade or more. Aged 11, he drew a weekly cartoon of famous comic characters to sell at the local farmers’ market, and aged 16 he sold his first nationally published work. His comic strip, Marco of Mars, was accepted by the Independent Syndicate of New York in 1929 though it was never distributed.

Wolverton made a living as a vaudeville performer for a time, with a special act where he sang in a baritone voice, played ukulele and tap danced. Other income came from his job as a journalist/cartoonist for the Portland News. He was baptized into Herbert W. Armstrong’s Radio Church of God in 1941 and was ordained as an elder in 1943. As a board member of the church, he was one of six people who re-incorporated the church in 1946 when it moved its original headquarters from Oregon to California. Later, he drew many illustrations for Armstrong’s religious publications, and then for The Plain Truth. But, in the comic world, he was building up a portfolio of clients: his first major success came with Powerhouse Pepper, from 1942 to 1948, a humorous boxing series. In 1946, he won a competition in Life Magazine which brought his name to a wider public.

Lambiek Comiclopedia gives this assessment: ‘Wolverton was a master in caricaturing the human face and body. He distorted body parts while multiplying others. Noses hang on necks, ears stick out of eye sockets, teeth point out in all directions, skins droop to the ground and virtually everyone has blisters or freckles. His characters seem to be made from plasticine rather than bones, but Wolverton knew how to draw it all with a sense of fun, elegance and innocence.’ It was only a tiny step, the encyclopaedia adds, for him to go from monstrous faces to drawing actual monsters and extraterrestrial aliens. In the early 1950s, he drew many and varied horror and science fiction stories for Stan Lee’s Atlas Comics (preceding what would become Marvel Comics) as well as for the comic books published by Stanley P. Morse. And, in 1952, he was among the pioneering artists working for Harvey Kurtzman's new satirical magazine MAD. Later in his career, Wolverton illustrated several covers for Joe Orlando’s satirical comic book Plop! (DC Comics, 1973-1975), and in 1974 he turned briefly to self-publishing. He suffered a stroke that same year, and died in 1978. Some further biographical information can also be gleaned from Wikipedia and Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr’s Illustrators.

Recently, in 2014, Fantagraphics released the first volume of an illustrated biography of Wolverton’s life - the most comprehensive biography ever published, it claims: Creeping Death from Neptune - The Life and Comics of Basil Wolverton (Volume 1: 1909-1941). The second volume, Brain Bats of Venus: The Life and Comics of Basil Wolverton (Volume 2: 1942-1952) is due to be published this coming autumn.

Throughout both books - authored by Greg Sadowski - there is a liberal sprinkling of extracts from diaries Wolverton kept at different points in his life. The first volume, for example, draws on a childhood diary. It was given him for Christmas in 1923, and, Sadowski says, ‘sheds light on his time in high school and his advancing interest in Christianity, cartooning, scientific magazines, vaudeville, and movies’. In it, he writes of 'escapades with his friends, which include building tunnels with secret passages, diving oft piers, and spying on wandering drunken men, with public intoxication being particularly scandalous during the Prohibition era.’ Several pages can be read online at Googlebooks, Amazon and Issuu. Wolverton didn’t resume keeping a diary until 1941, but when he did would write down each day’s events, occasionally punctuated with a wry remark. He kept up the habit for the next 30 years. Sadowski notes that from 1941 onwards his biography of Wolverton is ‘anchored’ by the diaries. Further information on the forthcoming second volume can also be found at Googlebooks and Amazon. (Incidently, the original comic Brain Bats of Venus can be viewed online at Internet Archive.)

Here are several extracts from Wolverton’s diaries as found in the two volumes.

24 December 1923
‘Hello folks, my name is Basil Wolverton and the first writing in this book was put here Dec. 24, 1923, the night before Christmas. I live in Vancouver, Washington. I have one sister, one mother, one father and no brothers. Thus only four in the family. I was born in Central Point, Oregon, July 9, 1909. I am now fourteen years old.

I got all my Christmas presents tonight and I sure am happy. I got a necktie, a pair of arm bands, a pair of swell gloves with gauntlets, a Tarzan book, two pounds of plaster paris, a hair brush, this diary book, two dollars, and some candy. I think that’s a good bunch of swell presents.’

1 January 1924
‘I ate a lot of dinner and then went to the show and laughed so much at the comedy that I’d of liked to split the front of my shirt and the seat of my pants and maybe my collar or my stockings. The comedy was so funny that I was behind in my laughs when funny things came along and I didn’t get to laugh enough at everything, but when I got home I made up tor it by laughing a lot.’

6 July 1924
‘Great lapse of time. Pardon me for leaving out so much of my diary but I have forgotten and neglected to write it. Well, it is summer and school has just been out for a month. Therefore only two months left. I went to Sunday School and Church today. I have been working in the cannery. I have earned sixteen dollars in seven days. I guess all the work is over now. I went to the show yesterday that is the second show in 1924.’

29 July 1925
‘Seven months is quite a long time. It is almost August already, and vacation is going fast I was elected president of the Lower Junior Class for the coming semester and will be president of the Upper Juniors during the last semester. I am sixteen years old now. Mom wanted to take her trip back East this summer but there is not enough money. I thought sure we were going to get to take it but I guess now we are not. I worked a little over a month now in the cannery, right after school and earned $96.88, which helps a little bit.

I am now trying to sell my cartoons to some syndicates. I made a few strips and called them Simple Simon and These Modern Inventions, and sent them to the King Features Syndicate at New York. The King Features Syndicate sent them to the International Feature Syndicate, just a block away. They both had no use for the cartoons, so sent them back and I made some more, only they were not in strip form but were just one big picture, and were called Funny Features. I made a four line verse to go with each of them and then sent them off to the N.E.A. Service at Cleveland, Ohio. I haven’t got them back yet, though. I sent them sixteen days ago. This mornings mail hasn’t come yet; they might be coming this morning.

Dad has been gone for about six weeks. He lives in Portland now. I will go out and saw some more wood and then come back and write down whether my pictures came this morning.

My pictures are coming tomorrow, I guess. I got a letter today saying that the syndicate had no use for them. C. N. Landon of the Landon School of Cartooning is the art director of the syndicate, so of course he wants me to take a course in his school, and then I’ll get a job. I won’t do that but I’ll make eight more pictures and send them to another syndicate.’

23 February 1942
‘First enemy shells (from submarine off California coast) landed on U.S. continent in this war. One wonders what will happen a week, a month, or a year from now.’

Early March 1942
‘Phone rang at 3:35 A.M. Was dreaming of air raid. Phone call was from Warden Farrell: alert alarm. I dressed and dashed over to Ben Wells’ place. Couldn’t rouse him. Went to Bettesworth’s place and got him up. Reported to Farrell. He told me to rout out neighbors who might help. I went after Frank Wanamaker and called Sollie. Then all-clear signal came. Went back to bed.’

Understand it, and love me

Havelock Ellis, an early British sexologist who wrote the first medical tract on homosexuality, died 80 years ago today. Given his own lack of experience in sexual matters, it remains a quirk of sociological history that he should have become such a pioneer in opening up discussion of sexuality and sexual problems. Intriguingly, he left behind some personal diaries but they have never been edited or published. In his own autobiography, for example, he says of one diary, ‘perhaps someone some day would read it, and understand it, and love me’.

Ellis was born in Croydon (now part of Greater London) in 1859. His father was a sea captain; and, aged seven, he was taken on one his father’s voyages. He attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham. In 1875, Ellis sailed with his father to Australia where, soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. But he was soon fired (for he had no qualifications) and became a tutor for a family for a year before obtaining a position as a master at a grammar school. Subsequently, he undertook training and was given charge of two government schools.

In 1879, however, Ellis returned to England where, having decided to study the subject of sex, he enrolled at St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School to become a physician. He funded his studies by editing literary works, and with a small legacy. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, through which he met a range of social reformers. And the following year he was part of the group that set up the Fabian Society. It was also in 1884 that he met Olive Schreiner with whom he had a long friendship.

Ellis published his first books - The Criminal and The New Spirit - in 1890. Soon after, he met Edith Lees who had been much impressed by The New Spirit. They married in 1891, though from the first the marriage was unconventional: they lived in separate homes, and Lees was openly lesbian. In 1897, the English translation of Ellis’s book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, became the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. Many further books about sex followed, although, as many commentators have noted, this was somewhat ironic since he himself was almost totally inexperienced.

Between 1897 and 1928, Ellis published seven volumes of his Psychology of Sex - considered a comprehensive and groundbreaking encyclopaedia of human sexual biology, behaviour, and attitudes. However, publication and dissemination of the first volume, Sexual Inversion, incited opposition in the UK, not least through a court case against a bookseller. As a result of the controversy, the remaining six volumes were published in the US. But, even across the Atlantic, sales were restricted to members of the medical profession (not till a change in the obscenity laws in 1935 were they allowed on general sale). Ellis’s work helped to foster open discussion of sexual problems, and he became known as a champion of women’s rights and of sex education. He was also a supporter of eugenics, and served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society. His other notable books include Man and Woman (1894), The Task of Social Hygiene (1912), and The Erotic Rights of Women (1918). He died on 8 July 1939. Further information can be gleaned from Wikipedia, Spartacus Educational, the Embryo Project Encyclopedia, or the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Ellis’s autobiography - My Life - was published soon after his death (Houghton Mifflin, 1939, and William Heinemann, 1940). It can be read freely online at Internet Archive. In Chapter Three, Ellis discusses a diary he kept for a while: ‘The Surrey left London on April 19th, 1875. From this date, and during the four years I spent in Australia, I kept a diary in a solid manuscript book purchased to this end, so that for the approaching formation period, when nearly all the seeds of my life’s activities were sown, I could if I please - though I have not done so - check my recollection by the entries in this intimate contemporary record. Except Olive Schreiner, none has ever read this diary, not even my wife, though it contains nothing I had any wish to hide from her; but to Olive, with her large tolerance and her active intellectual receptivity, it seemed in 1884 easy and natural to me to bare my inner self. I sometimes think that with increasing years and ill health she has become less tolerant, less receptive, but we have long been separated by all the waves of the Atlantic.’

And then, 100 pages further on Ellis says this: ‘Though in the published volume of Olive’s Letters so many extracts from those to me are given, I may perhaps now give a few further fragments from letters, early and late, having a more intimately personal reference to myself. Even before the end of 1884 we were living in an atmosphere of familiar nearness, and in November of that year, when ill in bed, she wrote: “I am not sure as to where you begin and I end.” A little later, when she had been reading my Australian diary in which I had put down that perhaps someone some day would read it, and understand it, and love me (Olive is still, more than half a century after it was written, the only person who has read it), she writes: “And then I was living just like you on a lonely farm, and at night when my work was over going out to walk under the willow trees or on the dam walls and I used to think ‘One day I must find him.’ ” ’

But this is not the only diary Ellis kept. Houston Peterson refers to diaries kept by Ellis in his 1928 biography Havelock Ellis: Philosopher of Love. In reviewing this, Margaret Sanger stated: ‘The excerpts from the early notebooks and diaries, which Havelock Ellis began at the age of ten, are especially interesting.’ The State Library of New South Wales holds some of Ellis’s diary material. It refers to ‘Diary 1875-1890’ with the following notes: ‘A few pencil notes by Henry Havelock Ellis in early part of diary appear to have been made some years later, only 1 is dated (page 99). Many entries in later part of diary refer to Olive Schreiner’; and, ‘The diary records mental and spiritual experiences, not day to day occurrences. A condensed account of these experiences, with comments, appears in his My Life, 1940 espec. pages 91-103.’ The Library also makes reference to six volumes of ‘commonplace books’. However - and unfortunately - none of Ellis’s diaries have ever been edited or published.

Purpose into my life

‘She put purpose into my life - the life of a spoiled bachelor congressman who was also a successful trial lawyer and a hero of the last war who tended to be too carefree and frivolous. In 11 years I jumped from congressman to President.’ This is Ferdinand Marcos, the president of the Philippines, writing in a diary about his wife, Imelda. Marcos was soon to introduce martial law, and the couple’s increasingly lavish lifestyle would also lead to them both being reviled. Although Marcos died in exile 30 years ago, Imelda returned to the Philippines eventually, continued a political career, and is celebrating her 90th birthday today.

Imelda Remedios Visitacion Romualdez was born on 2 July 1929 in Manila, Philippines. She was the oldest child of her father, a lawyer, and her mother, a dressmaker, though she had older siblings by her father’s earlier marriage. Her mother died when she was nine, and her father moved the family back to his own home city of Tacloban in the province of Leyte. She attended Holy Infant School from 1938 to 1944. She was crowned a local beauty queen when aged around 18. While studying at the Divine Word University, also in Tacloban, she taught at a local Chinese high school. She also enrolled for a while at a college of music. In the early 1950s, Imelda moved to Manila to live with a cousin who was a politician. She worked as a sales girl before her relatives found her a job at the Central Bank. She also came joint first in a Manila beauty contest, and continued singing lessons.

In 1954, Imelda met Ferdinand Marcos, a member of the House of Representatives, and 11 days later they were married in a small civil ceremony. Over the next decade or so, they had three children, and established themselves as one of the country’s most important political couples. In 1965, Ferdinand Marcos was elected president, and glamorous Imelda was likened to John Kennedy’s wife Jacqueline. However, the couple’s popularity started to wane as Marcos, in his second term, declared martial law, and Imelda’s spending on lavish projects seemed out of control. Chief among their critics was opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr, an old friend of Imelda’s. He was imprisoned, and then exiled to the US. Despite warnings from Imelda, he risked a return to the Philippines in 1983 but was assassinated by government forces at Manila airport.

When an election was called in 1986, opposition to Marcos rallied around Aquino’s widow, Corazon. Although Marcos claimed victory in the elections, the military withdrew its support from him when evidence of massive voting fraud emerged. The Marcos couple fled to Hawaii, and an extraordinary collection of shoes left behind by Imelda came to symbolise the excesses and corruption of the Marcos regime. Marcos died in 1989, and Imelda was subject to various ongoing embezzlement and graft charges (in the US and Philippines). However, she eventually made a return to her home country, where she unsuccessfully campaigned for president. She did win a place in Congress between 1995 and 1998, and was again elected to congress in 2010 and 2013. In 2018, she was convicted of seven counts of graft and sentence to 42 years in prison, though it is considered unlikely she will see any jail time (given her age, and the appeal processes). Further information is available from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia, Biography.com, The New York Times.

Although I can find no evidence that Imelda Marcos kept a diary, her husband certainly did, from the beginning of 1970. His manuscript diaries appear to have been left behind when the Marcos couple went into exile, and were discovered at the Malacañang Palace. They then found their way, mysteriously it seems, into the hands of the American journalist William C. Rempel, who then based a book on them: Delusions of a Dictator: the mind of Marcos as revealed in his secret diaries (Little, Brown, 1993).

In a 2013 article for Rappler, Rempel says this: ‘It was nearly 25 years ago that I got my first look at the diary of Ferdinand Marcos. I was an investigative reporter with the Los Angeles Times when about 3,000 pages of diary and other presidential papers were delivered to me in instalments - on street corners, at a restaurant, in the lobby of an office building - all very cloak-and-dagger. The documents were a journalist’s gold mine. I found bribery receipts and coded accounting reports recording official corruption. There were poems and love notes to First Lady Imelda and the Marcos children interspersed among Ferdinand’s plans for repression and dictatorship. The diary itself contained the president’s private musings about power and his messianic calling to “save the Philippines” from an exaggerated threat of communist insurgency. Here, too, was compelling evidence of Marcos plots against political rivals, the press, and anyone who dared to criticize his administration. But what caught me most by surprise were the lies - blatant, bald-faced, and occasionally comical. It turns out that while Ferdinand Marcos was lying to the world and to the Philippine people, he was also lying to his own diary.’

Rempel maintains his own website, but there is very little activity on it, nor is there any further information about the diaries. The celebrated Filipino historian Ambeth Raymundo Ocampo is said to be editing the diaries for publication, and he has spoken in public about them on several occasions. A selection of extracts from Marcos’s diary can be found online at the Inquirer.net; and even more can be found at The Philippine Diary Project. The diary extracts provided by The Philippine Diary Project come from ‘xeroxed copies of the diaries’ that were ‘written in longhand, more often than not, on official stationery.’ Indeed, alongside the transcribed diary extracts, it includes images of the diary pages. The following extracts, all mentioning Imelda, come from The Philippine Diary Project, except for those dated 2 and 12 June 1972 which I’ve taken from Inquirer.net.

13 January 1970
‘Imelda has a mass in the right breast and worries us because the doctors say that while there has been no change, an operation to remove it and to find out if it is malignant may be necessary.

I am suffering from pain in the right groin after golf. I hope it is not hernia. I see the doctor tomorrow.

And we were on a project to have another baby, a boy if possible. Massive injections of hormones for Imelda is necessary if we are to have a baby and this is not good for her growth in the breast which might develop into something serious with these hormones.’

19 January 1970
‘Imelda is strong enough to play host to her crowd nightly. We have just eaten Chinese lugao and lumpia brought in by Joe and Betty Campos. I liked most the bajo or powdered beef tapa and the seeweed for the lumpia. It is now 11:00 PM. Last night we went to bed at 11:30 PM. Read De Gaulle’s war memoirs up to 1:30 P.M. after writing my diary.

I must soon write my war memoirs while the events are still fresh in my mind.’

2 June 1972
‘Imelda is suffering from pain and from a deep sense of loss and sorrow for the abortion about which I have told her. She feels inadequate and has been crying her eyes out.

I have shed no tears for my unborn child, but I have vowed that I shall cure this sick society that has brought about the anguish of my wife, which caused the abortion. For the media has been vicious - it has condemned for a crime not charged, foisted gossip as truth and disregarded the rights of fair and impartial trial.

And this sick man who has committed perjury, libel and bribery has done me at least one favor. He has opened my eyes to this illness of our society that may yet destroy it. And my duty and mission is now to cure that illness.’

12 June 1972
‘Imelda and I have been reminiscing in bed - the long tortuous road from Congress to the presidency, the sacrifices, her tears, pain and hard work that went into our struggle for power.

She put purpose into my life - the life of a spoiled bachelor congressman who was also a successful trial lawyer and a hero of the last war who tended to be too carefree and frivolous.

In 11 years I jumped from congressman to President.’

17 September 1972
‘We escaped the loneliness of the palace for this old Antillan house now known as Ang Maharlika, the State Guest House several blocks from the palace. It has been restored beautifully by Imelda and is a symbol of Philippine culture in the last century. Almost all our antique valuables have been transferred here.

The departure of our children has made the palace a ghostly unbearable place.’

21 September 1972
‘Delayed by the hurried visit of Joe Aspiras and Meling Barbero who came from the Northern bloc of congressmen and senators who want to know if there is going to be Martial Law in 48 hours as predicted by Ninoy Aquino.

Of course Imelda and I denied it.’

22 September 1972
‘Sec. Juan Ponce Enrile was ambushed near Wack-Wack at about 8:00 pm tonight. It was a good thing he was riding in his security car as a protective measure. His first car which he usually uses was the one riddled by bullets from a car parked in ambush.

He is now at his DND office. I have advised him to stay there.

And I have doubled the security of Imelda in the Nayon Pilipino where she is giving dinner to the UPI and AP as well as other wire services.

This makes the martial law proclamation a necessity.

Imelda arrived at 11:35 PM in my Electra bullet proof car to be told that Johnny had been ambushed, it is all over the radio.

Congress is not adjourning tonight as the conference committee on the Tariff and Customs Code could not agree on a common version. They adjourn tomorrow.

I conferred with Speaker Villareal, Roces, Yñiguez and Barbero who are going to Moscow and they are ready to leave on Sunday. So they are decided to finish the session same.

Senate President Gil Puyat insists that the next special session be early January.

And they will not be able to pass the urgent bills like the rehabilitation bill.’

23 September 1972
‘Things have moved according to plan although out of the total 200 target personalities in the plan only 52 have been arrested, including the three senators, Aquino, Diokno and Mitra and Chino Roces and Teddy Locsin.

At 7:15 PM I finally appeared on a nationwide TV and Radio broadcast to announce the proclamation of martial law, the general orders and instructions.

I place them in Envelope XXXV-C

I was supposed to broadcast at 12:00AM but technical difficulties prevented it. We had closed all TV stations. We had to clear KBS which broadcast it live. VOP and PBS broadcast it by radio nationwide.

The broadcast turned out rather well and Mons. Gaviola as well as the [illegible] friends liked it. But my most exacting critic, Imelda, found it impressing. I watched the replay at 9:00 PM.’

Two nebulae in Leo

‘I ‘swept’ last night two hours, by three periods. It was a grand night - not a breath of air, not a fringe of a cloud, all clear, all beautiful. I really enjoy that kind of work, but my back soon becomes tired, long before the cold chills me. I saw two nebulae in Leo with which I was not familiar, and that repaid me for the time.’ This is from the diary of Maria Mitchell, an early American astronomer, who died 130 years ago day. She earned worldwide fame by discovering a comet, and later became the first female professional astronomer in the US.

Mitchell was born in Nantucket, an island of the coast of Massachusetts, in 1818 into a large Quaker family (10 children). Her father was a teacher with a strong interest in maths and astronomy. For a while, he had his own school, where Maria studied and helped out, but when it closed she attended a local minister’s school for young ladies, and helped out there too. When Maria opened her own school - aged only 16 - she allowed non-white children to attend. In 1836, though, she went to work as the first librarian for the newly launched Nantucket Atheneum - a position she held for 20 years.

On the night of 1 October 1847, Mitchell discovered Comet 1847 VI (modern designation C/1847 T1) which later became known as Miss Mitchell’s Comet. Under her father’s name she published a notice of her find in Silliman’s Journal the following January, and subsequently submitted her calculation of the comet’s orbit, ensuring her claim as the original discoverer. She won a prestigious gold medal from Denmark for the discovery. This brought her fame, but also helped establish the importance of American astronomy, previously looked down on by the Europeans. She became the first woman elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1848 and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1850. She also contributed to the U.S. Nautical Almanac Office, calculating tables of positions of Venus.

On leaving the Atheneum in 1856, Mitchell travelled in the United States and in Europe. She was appointed professor of astronomy at the newly established Vassar College in 1865 where she had access to a twelve-inch telescope, the third largest in the US. She defied social conventions by allowing her female students out at night for class work and celestial observations, and she brought noted feminists to speak on political issues. She taught at the college until her retirement in 1888. She had never married; and she died on 28 June 1889. Further information is available from the Maria Mitchell Association, Wikipedia, or the National Women’s History Museum.

Mitchell kept a diary for much of her life, although the only extant manuscripts date from September 1854. After her death, her youngest sister, Phebe Mitchell Kendall, used them extensively for her biographical work: Maria Mitchell - Life, Letters and Journals (Lee and Shepherd, 1896). This is freely available online at Internet Archive; and an appreciation of her journals can be found at Brainpickings. More recently, Henry Albers has published a similar biography - entitled Maria Mitchell: A Life in Journals and Letters (College Avenue Press, 2001) - with many quotations from the diaries. Some pages of this can be read at Amazon. According to Albers, the Maria Mitchell Association holds about 70 of Mitchell’s notebooks (containing letters, diaries, speeches and classroom lectures as well as visiting cards, articles on astronomy, et.). He also notes that Phebe used several quotations from diaries kept by her sister that are no longer extant, i.e. those prior to September 1854.

The following extracts are all taken from the 1896 biography of Mitchell by her sister.

19 February 1853
‘I am just learning to notice the different colors of the stars, and already begin to have a new enjoyment. Betelgeuse is strikingly red, while Rigel is yellow. There is something of the same pleasure in noticing the hues that there is in looking at a collection of precious stones, or at a flower-garden in autumn. Blue stars I do not yet see, and but little lilac except through the telescope.’

11 May 1853
‘I could not help thinking of Esther [a much-loved cousin who had recently died] a few evenings since when I was observing. A meteor flashed upon me suddenly, very bright, very short-lived; it seemed to me that it was sent for me especially, for it greeted me almost the first instant I looked up, and was gone in a second, - it was as fleeting and as beautiful as the smile upon Esther’s face the last time I saw her. I thought when I talked with her about death that, though she could not come to me visibly, she might be able to influence my feelings; but it cannot be, for my faith has been weaker than ever since she died, and my fears have been greater.’

2 March 1854
‘I ‘swept’ last night two hours, by three periods. It was a grand night - not a breath of air, not a fringe of a cloud, all clear, all beautiful. I really enjoy that kind of work, but my back soon becomes tired, long before the cold chills me. I saw two nebulae in Leo with which I was not familiar, and that repaid me for the time. I am always the better for open-air breathing, and was certainly meant for the wandering life of the Indian.’

22 September 1854
‘On the evening of the 18th while ‘sweeping’ there came into the field the two nebulae in Ursa Major which I have known for many a year, but which to my surprise now appeared to be three. The upper one (as seen in an inverted telescope) appeared double headed like one near the Dolphin, but much more decided than that. The space between the two heads being plainly discernible and subtending a very decided angle. The bright part of the object was clearly the old nebulae but what was the appendage? Had the nebula suddenly changed, was it a comet, or was it only a very fine night?
Father decided at once for the comet, I hesitated with my usual cowardice and forbade his giving it a notice in the paper.

I watched it from 8.30 to 11.30 almost without cessation and was quite sure at 11.30 that its position with regard to the neighboring stars had changed. I counted its distance from the known nebula several times but the whole affair was difficult, for there were flying clouds and sometimes both nebula and comet were too indistinct to be definitely seen.

The 19th was cloudy and the 20th the same with the variety of wearisome breaks, through which I could see the nebula but not the comet.

On the 21st came a circular and behold Mr. van Arsdale had seen it on the 13th but had not been sure of it until the 15th on account of the clouds. I was too well pleased with having really made the discovery to care because I was not first.

Let the Dutchman have the reward of his sturdier frame and steadier nerves.

Especially could I be a Christian because the 13th was cloudy and more especially because I dreaded the responsibility of making the computations nolens nolens [willy-nilly] which I must have done to be able to call it mine. . .

I made observations for three hours last night, and am almost ill to-day from fatigue; still I have worked all day, trying to reduce the places, and mean to work hard again to-night.’

25 September 1854
‘I began to recompute for the comet, with observations of Cambridge and Washington, to-day. I have had a fit of despondency in consequence of being obliged to renounce my own observations as too rough for use. The best that can be said of my life so far is that it has been industrious, and the best that can be said of me is that I have not pretended to what I was not.’

24 November 1854
‘Yesterday James Freeman Clarke, the biographer of Margaret Fuller [a journalist and editor associated American transcendentalism, and an advocate of women’s rights], came into the Atheneum. It was plain that he came to see me and not the institution. . . He rushed into talk at once, mostly on people, and asked me about my astronomical labors. As it was a kind of flattery, I repaid it in kind by asking him about Margaret Fuller. He said she did not strike any one as a person of intellect or as a student, for all her faculties were kept so much abreast that none had prominence. I wanted to ask if she was a lovable person, but I did not think he would be an unbiassed judge, she was so much attached to him.’
 
16 December 1855
‘All along this year I have felt that it was a hard year - the hardest of my life. And I have kept enumerating to myself my many trials; to-day it suddenly occurred to me that my blessings were much more numerous. If mother’s illness was a sore affliction, her recovery is a great blessing; and even the illness itself has its bright side, for we have joyed in showing her how much we prize her continued life. If I have lost some friends by death, I have not lost all. If I have worked harder than I felt that I could bear, how much better is that than not to have as much work as I wanted to do. I have earned more money than in any preceding year; I have studied less, but have observed more, than I did last year. I have saved more money than ever before, hoping for Europe in 1856.’

Plant hunting in America

‘Nothing, as far as the eye could perceive, but mountains such as I was on, and many higher, some rugged beyond any description, striking the mind with horror blended with a sense of the wondrous works of the Almighty. The aerial tints of the snow, the heavenly azure of the solid glaciers, the rainbow-like hues of their thin broken fragments, the huge mossy icicles hanging from the perpendicular rocks with the snow sliding from the steep southern rocks with amazing velocity, producing a crash and grumbling like the shock of an earthquake, the echo of which resounding in the valley for several minutes.’ This is from a diary kept by the much admired Scottish botanist, David Douglas, born 220 years ago today. In a short life - he died in his mid-30s - he discovered hundreds of plant species in North America, and introduced many of them to Britain. His name has also been given to an important evergreen conifer - Douglas fir - as well as to scores of scientific names of plant and animal species.

Douglas was born in Scone, very near Perth, Scotland, on 25 June 1799, the second son of a stonemason. He attended a local school, and was then apprenticed, aged 11, to the gardener at Scone Palace, the seat of the Earl of Mansfield. After seven years in this position, he went to study at a college in Perth. In 1817 he moved to work in the gardens of Sir Robert Preston, at Valleyfield in Fife, where he was given access to an extensive botany library. Three years later Douglas took up a post in the Botanical Gardens of the University of Glasgow. Here, his potential was recognised by the Professor of Botany, Sir William Hooker, and the two mounted a number of botanical expeditions into the Highlands together.

In 1823, Douglas was recommended by Hooker to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) for an expedition to America to collect plants. He spent the latter half of that year in Philadelphia. The RHS were pleased enough with his notes and seeds to send him back, with sponsorship by Hudson’s Bay Company, this time to the Pacific northwest. He arrived in Fort Vancouver in April 1825, and travelled inland to Hudson Bay, which he reached in 1827.

In 1830, Douglas returned for a third trip, to explore California and the Fraser River region, stopping in Hawaii on the way. He returned to Hawaii in December 1833, intending to remain there only a few months, but he was still there in July when he met his death, being gored in a trap by a wild bull. He was only 35. Douglas is credited with discovering many new animal and plant species, not least the Douglas fir which bears his name. He introduced several hundred plants to Great Britain and hence to Europe; and eighty species of plants and animals have douglasii in their scientific names. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, Discovering Lewis & Clark, the Oregon Encyclopaedia, or The Douglas Archives.

In 1914, the RHS finally published, what it called, Journal kept by David Douglas during his travels in North America 1823-1827 together with a particular description of thirty-three species of American oaks and eighteen species of pinus. The book, freely available at Internet Archive, is a medley of journals, letters, memoir material, and scientific lists of species with descriptions. There are diaries from each of the three different trips Douglas made to America, but it is the journal of his second trip that takes up the bulk of the book (more than 200 pages of 350 in total).

Here is how the RHS secretary, W. Wilks, explains, in a preface, why it took so long to publish Douglas’s diaries:

‘Many causes have contributed to the delay which has taken place in the publication of the Diaries of David Douglas’s journeys on behalf of the Royal Horticultural Society :—
1. The handwriting is nowhere easy to read, and in places is most difficult, occasionally almost if not quite impossible.
2. In the course of nearly one hundred years the ink has faded and become in places very hard to decipher.
3. After the Diary of his journey in North Western America had been prepared for the press and set up in type, a second manuscript was discovered which was at first sight taken to be a duplicate, but which on closer examination was found to contain a great deal of additional information. It had therefore to be compared word for word with the Diary and the additions inserted in their proper places.
4. All the botanical names mentioned have been very carefully looked up by Mr. H. R. Hutchinson and the name given to the plant in Index Kewensis or by other later authority is quoted at the bottom of the page with a reference to the author responsible for it.
5. Last, but by no means least, the work was entrusted to the Secretary of the Society and to Mr. Hutchinson, the Librarian, each of whom had already more work in hand than he could conveniently compass, and only occasional spare time could be given to a work which had already waited nearly one hundred years for publication before it was committed to their charge.’

The following extracts are all from the first journal, except for the last which is from the second.

3 June 1823
‘LONDON: left Charing Cross by coach for Liverpool. Morning very pleasant; had rained through the night, country very fine for seventeen miles from the metropolis; found during time of changing horses Conferva egerops (Ball) confer. Beautiful fields at Woburn Abbey tastefully laid out and divided by hedgerows in which are planted Horse-chestnuts (Aesculus Hippocastanum) at regular distances, ail in full flower; had a very imposing appearance. Menyanthes nymphoides, for the first time I ever saw it in its natural state. Northampton at 2.30 o’clock p.m., rested 25 minutes; reached Lancaster quarter to 10 p.m., took supper, started again half past 10, rain during the night; very cold. Arrived at Liverpool 4 o’clock afternoon. After calling on Messrs. Monal & Woodward and learning that the Ann Maria of New York was to sail the following morning, in which a passage had been taken for me, I arranged my business as to my departure and made for Botanic Garden. Mr. Shepherd received me in the most handsome manner; showed me all his treasures (of which not a few were from North America).’ 

6 June 1823
‘On board at 9 o’clock A.M. in tow of two power steam-boats, which left 15 miles down the channel; we made but little progress, wind being rather contrary.’

2 August 1823
‘The ship this morning was all in an uproar, in consequence of a horse, which one of the passengers had, being looked on as dying; it cost him £200 in England, and after troubled passage the poor man lost his horse. At 12 o’clock saw light at Sandy Hook.’

3 August 1823
‘Four o’clock A.M. saw more of the New World. Every face seemed to feel glad, and at 7 A.M. took a pilot on board; at 10 passed the floating light lately erected, the Captain of which came on board of the Ann Maria; 4 o’clock passed the Nourain waspe, and the other forts on the right and left; half-past 4 cast anchor and considered ourselves at land; 5 o’clock boarded by the Health Officer, who signified that fourteen days of quarantine was requisite in consequence of small-pox; at 6 o’clock went on shore on Staten; returned to the vessel at 7.’

11 August 1823
‘Early this morning I went to the vegetable market, the Fulton. It had a beautiful appearance, beet of superior variety and fine carrots, raised in this country; I observed a very great deficiency of cauliflower, indeed they were miserably poor; onions were fine, mostly red; the immense supply of melons and cucumbers - the latter of which, however, were not so fine as may be expected and appeared for the most part to be the same as the short prickly ones cultivated in England - the melons were fine. An abundant supply of early apples, pears, peaches - the two former were fine, but the peaches looked rather bad, being ripened immaturely and the trees being sickly; immense varieties of squashes or gourds, plums, early damsons, a great supply of pineapples from the West Indies, and cocoanuts. I observed a fine head of Musa sapientum which weighed 40 lb. At 8 o’clock this morning we set off for Flushing and visited the establishment of Mr. Prince. I found him a man of but moderate liberality; he has some good specimens of Magnolia, of Berberis Aquifolium, a few European plants, common shrubs and herb plants. Indeed on the whole I must confess to be somewhat disappointed, for his extensive catalogue and some talk had heightened my idea of it; but most of his ground is covered over with weeds. I was much pleased with the beautiful villas on the banks of the Sound; saw people employed in preparing their operations for diving to the Hussar, a British frigate taken during the late war.’

1 January 1824
‘On the morning of the New Year, I had the gratification of seeing the rocky shores of Cornwall and with a continued steady wind came to an anchorage off Dover on Saturday morning.’

***

1 May 1826
‘This morning our fire that was kindled on the snow had sunk into a hole 6 feet deep, making a natural kitchen. Minimum heat 2°, maximum 44°, on the highest part of the big hill. Started at daybreak, finding the snow deeper and the trees gradually diminish towards the summit; laborious to ascend. Went frequently off the path in consequence of not seeing the marks on the trees, being covered with the snow. Reached the top at ten, three miles, where we made a short stay to rest. Course north-east. Descended in the same direction and came on the river which we left two days before. Passed in the valley two small level spots clear of wood and one low point of wood of small trees, Pinus nigra and P. Banksiana, where we camped at midday, being unable to proceed further from the deep soft snow. Progress seven miles. Mr. E. killed on the height of land a most beautiful male partridge, a curious species; small; neck and breast jet black; back of a lighter hue; belly and under the tail grey, mottled with pure white; beak black; above the eye bright scarlet, which it raises on each side of the head, screening the few feathers on the crown; resembles a small well-crested domesticated fowl; leaves of Pinus nigra in the crop. This is the sort of bird mentioned to me by Mr. McLeod as inhabiting the higher parts of Peace and Smoky Rivers. This, however, is not so large as described. Perhaps there may be two varieties. Said also to be found in Western Caledonia. This being the first I have seen, could not resist the temptation of preserving it, although mutilated in the legs and in any circumstances little chance of being able to carry it, let alone being in a good state. The flesh of the partridge remarkably tender when new killed, like game that has been killed several days; instead of being white, of a darkish cast. After breakfast at one o’clock, being as I conceive on the highest part of the route, I became desirous of ascending one of the peaks, and accordingly I set out alone on snowshoes to that on the left hand or west side, being to all appearance the highest. The labour of ascending the lower part, which is covered with pines, is great beyond description, sinking on many occasions to the middle. Half-way up vegetation ceases entirely, not so much as a vestige of moss or lichen on the stones. Here I found it less laborious as I walked on the hard crust. One-third from the summit it becomes a mountain of pure ice, sealed far over by Nature’s hand as a momentous work of Nature’s God. The height from its base may be about 5500 feet: timber, 2750 feet; a few mosses and lichen, 500 more; 1000 feet of perpetual snow; the remainder, towards the top 1250, as I have said, glacier with a thin covering of snow on it. The ascent took me five hours; descending only one and a quarter. Places where the descent was gradual, I tied my shoes together, making them carry me in turn as a sledge. Sometimes I came down at one spell 500 to 700 feet in the space of one minute and a half. I remained twenty minutes, my thermometer standing at 18°; night closing fast in on me, and no means of fire, I was reluctantly forced to descend. The sensation I felt is beyond what I can give utterance to. Nothing, as far as the eye could perceive, but mountains such as I was on, and many higher, some rugged beyond any description, striking the mind with horror blended with a sense of the wondrous works of the Almighty. The aerial tints of the snow, the heavenly azure of the solid glaciers, the rainbow-like hues of their thin broken fragments, the huge mossy icicles hanging from the perpendicular rocks with the snow sliding from the steep southern rocks with amazing velocity, producing a crash and grumbling like the shock of an earthquake, the echo of which resounding in the valley for several minutes. On the rocks of the wood were Menziesia caerulea; Andromeda hypnoides; Lycopodium alpinum; L. sp. unknown to me; dead stems of Gentiana nivalis; Epilobium sp., small; Salix herbacea; Empetrum nigrum, fruit in a good state of preservation underneath the snow; Juncus triglumis; J. biglumis, with a few Musci, Jungermanniae and lichens.’

Society in Salem

‘We now have seriously the Cold of Winter. The Therm, at Zero. Politics become more sour as the severity of winter increases.’ This is the Reverend William Bentley, born 260 years ago today, writing in the diary he kept for most of his life. He served as a church minister in Salem, Massachusetts, and was much involved in the local community. His diary is a gossipy, informative read, covering a wide range of news acquired from his own observations/conversations as well as from the newspapers - indeed his diary is considered an ‘invaluable compendium’ of social and political observations.

Bentley was born in Boston on 22 June 1759, son of a ship’s carpenter, though as a child he lived with his well-off grandfather, a miller. He studied at academic schools, learning Greek and Latin, before entering Harvard College aged 14 where he studied oriental languages. He graduated in 1777, and started to teach at Boston while continuing his studies. He also tutored at Harvard itself, and preached at local churches. In 1783, he began to serve as a minister of East Church in Salem, a position he retained for the rest of his life. From 1794, he contributed a weekly news summary for William Carleton’s Salem Gazette, and he continued doing so until 1817. He also contributed regularly to the Essex Register and the Essex Gazette. He learned many languages, was said to be fluent in seven, and amassed a private library of over 4,000 volumes. In 1805, while planning the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson invited Bentley to be its first president, however the offer was declined.

Bentley travelled extensively, maintained active memberships in a fire club, a military unit and a Masonic Lodge. He also helped organise and support a number of music societies and was founder of the East India Marine Society. Indeed, his personal inventory of artefacts and curiosities later became the foundation for the society’s museum collection. Among his many friends, he counted James Winthrop, a fellow Harvard alumnus. Bentley never married but boarded for more than 20 years with Hannah Crowninshield. He tutored her niece as well as others. He received an honorary Doctorate of Sacred Theology from Harvard in 1819, and died later that same year. Further information is available at Wikipedia, Salemweb, Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography, and Harvard Library.

Bentley was an avid diarist - indeed he is even listed in some places as a diarist and a minister. He kept his diary from 1785 until his death. SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Context) says it ‘is an invaluable compendium of gossip, shipping news, vital statistics, social and political observations, and petty miscellany, in the period of Salem’s prominence as a major commercial center.’ The Diary of William Bentley D.D. was first published - as far as I can tell - between 1905 and 1911 in four volumes (1785-1792, 1793-1802, 1803-1810, 1811-1819) by the Essex Institute (in Salem). All four volumes can be freely accessed at Internet Archive. Here are several extracts from volumes one, three and four.

1 March 1790
‘Drafted a Petition in favor of Capt Ashton, &c. to Selectmen of Salem, remonstrating against the State of the New Road, leading to Essex Bridge.’

2 March 1790
‘The Federal District Court for the first time opened this day in Salem. The Hon: John Lowell, Judge.[. . .] The Judge addressed the Jury in an excellent manner, & Revd Hopkins prayed.’

3 March 1790
‘The Jury sat all last night upon a Seizure & could not agree, & were dismissed this morning. Mr Phippen buried two children in one procession, the first instance within my own knowledge. Both carried in Chaises. Another Jury was collected from the Town who decided upon the short entry, & whether the entries at the State Offices were valid for the Continental Office after the Constitution of the States took place, but before the appointment of officers, & decided both points at once without hesitation. Such are our Juries, & this is the specimen given to us at the first Court, in which Mr. Parsons of Newbury seems to have an unbounded influence.’

4 March 1790
‘A Chimney belonging to Capt J. Gardiner took fire, it being a very windy day, & it burnt with great fury. It has communication with one of your Open Stoves called Philadelphian. This shows the need of these Franklin Stoves, in which by lamina over & under which the smoke passing into the Chimney, the soot is detained in the Stove, & can be cleansed from the lamina upon which it lodges. The Ventilator on the side makes the passage easy for the smoak.’

5 March 1790
‘General Catalogue of Social Library in Salem, as taken from L. Books [appearing in the original is here omitted.]. This Catalogue is taken almost literally from the Catalogue shewn me in the Library by Master Noyes (& tho’ it is very badly arranged), being short, it may be read over in a few minutes. The Library has been collected for some time. There have been no additions to it since the War, deserving of notice. In the War a Library including Phil. Transactions, &c. was taken, going to Canada, which has laid the foundation of a distinct Philosophical Library & this is the object of present attention.’
 
16 December 1807
‘A man named Benjamin Brown, attempting to pass from a boat on the flat to the shore, fell into one of the mud holes dug for the wharves & perished last evening. He was heard but assistance could not be afforded him seasonably. Mr. Chandler who keeps the school near the Branch for proprietors, was at B. B. this evening. This is the fourth year. The first Master Rogers, then Tappan. Tappan has a school at the other end of the town among his particular friends. A new School is projected. A Master’s School for Misses in the fine arts. This is also to be a School for Subscribers like the three Schools in this town under Knap, Tappan & Chandler. I do not know how far it has progressed.’

17 December 1807
‘Mr. B. Brown was interred this evening. As soon as the body was found it was conveyed to the Charity House as the body of a stranger. But his Brethren of the sea refused the Charity & with their usual generosity insisted upon his regular interment at their own expense. They went to the full extent of the funeral charges & no refusal, tho’ repeated, would allow me to dispense with my silk gloves under any pretences. I accepted & gave them to the family of the Sexton. The Seamen were present in remarkable good order & 153 of them accompanied the procession & afterwards returned with it to the house in which their deceased friend lived. I never saw a more happily conducted act of friendship & sympathy.’

5 January 1808
‘We now have seriously the Cold of Winter. The Therm, at Zero. Politics become more sour as the severity of winter increases. Why the Embargo? say all. Some reply, because of France. Some of England. Some hope it will make the administration unpopular. Others wish to complain but they dare not give the opposition so much pleasure. Where interest prevails & patriotism is little known, we can hope nothing from the latter without some present hopes of the former. Prosperity has been at the helm & has corrupted us. Integrity cannot command, without hazard, that obedience will be refused. Failures are expected & the Nat[ional] Int[elligencer] tells us that the daring speculations of individuals deserve to be exposed & prevented. The embargo is general. The attempt to exempt the Fisheries, tho’ supported by all the members from Massachusetts, was unavailing.’

11 February 1808
‘Another melancholy occurrence in English street. A Mrs. Buchanan, alias Getchel, alias Lane, was in the afternoon setting before the fire with a child in her arms, in a fit of intoxication. The child fell from her arms into the fire & before aid was obtained the child was past recovery. The woman has always been thought below the ordinary character of her sex & her habits were known from the difficulty of rousing her. It is an aggravated evil as her numerous & deserving relatives feel more than the insensible fool who has brought disgrace & shame. As this is the second burning to death this season & the first season in which any such thing has happened it is more interesting to notice it. In the former case no suspicion attached itself to the event.’

7 September 1810
‘The Census of Salem is now before the world & the increase has been rapid indeed. So that their own blood which has flowed in our veins has not been unfavourable to increase, activity, powerful attraction. The Negroes have not increased, the worst part of our population, as Men without trades, tyes, & tribute must be. I impute the decrease to the number of sober citizens, & not without property, who finish the life of a seamen in the little offices of labourers & who have character, property, & ability enough to deserve attention.’

22 May 1815
‘A sad alarm at the Post Office. Long suspicions have ended in discovery that the late Robbery of the Mail was done in the Office. One of the Lads has been detected. Everything is done to conceal the matter & the boy is admitted to bonds. Had circumstances been different we should have found the treatment different. The public mind will soon require a change in this office. Lookers out may be found. Some of our Prisoners have returned from England & report between 5 & 6 thousand. Above two thousand of these are to be found among the Impressed men, when the wretches who talk much of integrity have reported to the State a less number than has been found in Salem, only one town upon a coast of several hundred miles. The vilest policy could not venture upon greater insults to the understanding of men.’

29 May 1816
‘I went this morning to see the Elephant now on a visit to this town. I went in the morning when I might examine him without any of the tricks he has been taught to play. I saw nothing pleasing in the form or wonderful in his endowments. His surprising volume will be contemplated with astonishment. His place in Creation is yet to be assigned. Mr. Dane told me he had seen an Ox of 3 th. pounds who was a much nobler animal to survey but that enormous volume did not give but half the weight of this Animal tho it gave 3/4. of its height & not much short of its length. The Elephant is 13 feet round the body. What must our mammoth be?’

12 June 1816
‘Saw on the neck for the first time Rock Splitting at the great Rocks near the Causeway, neck side. First, an entrance was made by a long handled pick much like that used upon mill stones, squared to a point. Then the holes were made by a flat chisel tapering to a point. Then the wedges, four inches long, were put in between pieces of iron hoop & drove home bv a large iron maul. At both splittings the wedges were driven only twice & caused a fracture of more than two feet square in the hard black rock of the neck. The person at work said the Danvers rocks were not so hard, & did not make that ringing under the chisel which he called like pot metal. In few seasons have we heard more hitter complaints against cold weather than since June has come in, tho the winter & the whole season, if I may judge from the woodpile, has been as moderate as 1 have ever known. We shall soon hear complaints of heat.’

13 June 1816
‘Our fishermen have had good fares upon the Banks but think as something is always wanting, that they should have done better had they been permitted to fish nearer the shores. Five fishing vessels with 40 hands including men & boys returned to Province town, point of Cape Cod, with 1000 quintals each. Marblehead begins to revive & having a staple will out step us in Salem if we do not move quicker, says the people of Salem.’

Like wolves and hyaenas

’A fortnight ago a party of Bau men pillaged many of the plantations of Verata, & killed several persons: and this week they went in greater numbers, - ravaged part of the territories of the king of Verata, burned two settlements, killed 260 human beings, and brought away many prisoners. For two days they have been tearing and devouring one another like wolves and hyaenas.’ This is the Scottish missionary David Cargill, born 210 years ago today, writing in his diary about life on the island of Fiji in the 1830s.

Cargill was born on 20 June 1809 in Brechin, Forfarshire, Scotland, the second son of a banker. He graduated from King’s College, Aberdeen in 1830. Whilst studying he had joined the Aberdeen Methodist Circuit, and in 1831 he was admitted to the church as a preacher. The following year he got married, to Margaret Smith, and he also received his first missionary appointment for the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, to Tonga, in the South Pacific. Soon after the couple sailed for Australia, and eventually, to Tonga. They worked together there, with another missionary for three years, helping Christian development. The Cargills then moved with their young family and other missionaries to the Fiji Islands, where Christian influence had yet to take hold. David Cargill is credited alongside his co-worker, William Cross, with establishing the first Wesleyan Church in Fiji.

As a trained linguist, Cargill wrote the first grammar and dictionary for a Fijian language and he also supervised the translation of parts of the Bible into Fijian. Margaret died in 1840, and grief stricken, he returned to Britain with his four daughters. He remarried on 27 November 1841, to Augusta Bicknell, and shortly afterwards they all sailed for Hobart, Tasmania. Although his children became seriously ill with measles during the voyage, they all survived. Moreover, Margaret gave birth to a son on board. They spent several months in Tasmania, before heading for Tonga, where Cargill took over the superintendancy of the Vava’u Wesleyan mission. Unfortunately, he was struck down by dengue fever, which led to severe exhaustion and depression. He died of an overdose of laudanum in April 1843. There is a little further information about him available at Mundus. There is also a memoir written by Cargill’s wife, Margaret, and edited by her husband (first published in 1841 as Memoirs of Mrs Margaret Cargill). A modern edition of this can be previewed at Amazon.

However, it was not until the 1970s that Cargill’s diaries were edited (by Albert J. Schulz) and published by the Australian National University as The Diaries and Correspondence of David Cargill, 1832-1843. This work can be freely read online at the university website or at Docbox. H. E. Maude in his preface says this: ‘Some missionaries [. . .] appear to have been compulsive diarists, and many were required by the rules of the societies which sent them into the field to submit reports which could be published in whole or part for the delectation of their supporters back home, who somewhat naturally liked to feel that they were getting their money’s worth. In any case, whatever their motivation, they wrote too much for immediate use and there is still a wealth of data of value to anthropologists and historians to be found in their manuscript journals and letters, and particularly in those of the earlier missionaries, who lived among the Pacific Islanders at a time when local cultures were still functioning virtually unchanged. The diaries and correspondence of David
Cargill have long been recognised as among the most valuable of this still unpublished material, since Cargill was not only the first university educated Methodist to be assigned to the islands but also, with William Cross, the first European missionary to live in Fiji.’

And here is a sample of entries from the published diaries.

27 March 1833
‘It is probable that we shall have to remain 3 or 4 months in Sydney. Mrs Cargill is much weakened by the voyage. There have been many hinderances in the way of improvement in Sydney, so that religion seems to be at a low ebb. There is however the appearance of a little cloud in the heavens. The congregations though small are very attentive to the word. O Lord, I beseech Thee, send now prosperity. I feel determined through divine grace to be entirely devoted to the work in which I am engaged. May the Lord qualify me for usefulness.

It is not likely that we shall meet with anyone in this place qualified to teach us the Tonga language. Mr Orton has furnished us with a few translations: they will perhaps assist me in [     ] myself master of a small vocabulary; till I shall [have] better facilities for acquiring the language.

During the voyage we made but little progress in the acquisition of Greek. Mr Whiteley, I think, advanced as far as the end of the first conjugation. What he has acquired, he seems to understand. Mr Tucker could translate the first 12 verses of the 1st ch. of John.’

20 June 1833
‘This day I have lived twenty-four years. My life has been hitherto a life of many mercies. I feel condemned for my ingratitude, & the small progress I have made in divine things. I have indeed been a cumberer of the ground. O Lord, revive thy work in my heart! Enable me to make an unreserved dedication of the members of my body & the faculties of my soul to thy service.

Most of the inhabitants of this Colony are sunk very low in the mire of iniquity. And even the piety of professing Christians is very superficial. The profligacy of the wicked, & the lukewarmness of professors, call loudly for divine vengeance. There are but few encouragements for the labourer in this part of the vineyard. To use the expression of the venerable & respected Mr McAllum, preaching to the Majority of the inhabitants, is like ‘plowing among rocks.’ But although the society do not appear to consider one another to provoke one another to love and good works, it is nevertheless to be expected that some of the seeds of grace are sown in good ground. There are a few who possess a leaven of piety & love. But their ardour is so damped by the prevailing lukewarmness, that they are entirely thrown into the background. May the happy day soon dawn when the inhabitants of this Colony shall have been raised from their moral degradation!

I am engaged in attending to Mr Orton’s appointments during his absence: And have frequently to preach 5 or 6 times in Sydney during the week. The Lord has been pleased so far to honour me as to make my services useful in the conviction & conversion of two or three persons who it is hoped, will be living stones in the temple of God. My time is chiefly occupied in preparing for the pulpit, & visiting the people, so that I have had but little time to improve my stock of general knowledge . . .’

4 September 1833
‘Rode about 26 miles through ‘the bush’ in company with Mr. Orton to visit the people residing in the vicinity of Botany Bay. Some of them are in a deplorable and wretched condition; We fell in with a small village on the beach, inhabited by fishermen, who not only neglect and violate the Christian Sabbath by pursuing their usual employment, but seem destitute of even the form of godliness, & we have reason to suspect, are living in concubinage with aboriginal women. One of the women, however, expressed a desire to learn to read: & there was an air of cleanliness about the huts wh. ill accorded with their heathenish depravity. Does not the condition of such pitiable beings prove, that man without the Gospel is foolish, & is prone to say, ‘There is no God?’ Returned home about 1/2 past 5 P.M. and @ 7 - preached in Macquarie St. Chapel from - ‘behold I stand @ the door and knock’ &c.’

20 October 1833
‘Mrs. C. exhibited symptoms of inflammation wh. induced Dr. Bland to draw a considerable quantity of blood from her; The disagreeable symptoms were removed, & she experienced great relief. Baby is doing well.’

17 November 1833
‘This morning our lovely infant was baptized in Marquarie St Ch. by the Revd W. Simpson. May the Lord spare her life and grant her grace to be a comfort & blessing to us. She is named Jane Smith out of respect to her grandmother.’

12 February 1834
‘This afternoon attended divine service in the chapel. After Bro. T’s address to the congregation, we witnessed an interesting sight in the marriage of four couples: including the King & Queen of a small island about 40 miles from Vavau. Native teachers have been sent to instruct them. With the divine blessing on their labours, the people about 60 in number have led resolved to abandon idolatry & embrace Christianity. The King & some of his subjects have come to Vavau to be married & baptized. The rest of the people of the island are expected when the wind is favourable to the sailing of the canoes. And thus one island after another is deserting the ranks of idolatry, & Satan’s empire is becoming less extensive & powerful. O that the day may soon dawn when not only every island in this vast ocean shall have been christianized, but when the friends of religion shall triumphantly sing -
Jesus the Conqueror reigns,
In glorious strength array’d;
His Kingdom over all maintains
And bids the earth be glad.’

29 August 1836
‘This day I finished my translation of the three epistles of John into the Tonguese language: May the Lord make them a blessing to all who may read or hear them.’

20 July 1838
‘About 2 O.C. this morning our fifth child - a stout girl - was born. We have had none but natives to assist us at this critical juncture, but the Lord has been better to us than all our fears. Our native female servant has been very attentive and kind on this occasion. Mrs C is much better. . . than we could have expected her to be. May she and I have grace to dedicate ourselves afresh to the service of God.’

23 July 1838
This forenoon our people under the direction of Uiliami Lajike began to build a new chapel. We held divine service at the erecting of the posts which are to support the building. The scene was very interesting and I trust profitable to the souls of many. A large congregation was present, and many tears of joy were shed. The Feejeeans and the Tonguese seem to be desirous of outstripping one another in this labour of love. All have engaged in the undertaking with great alacrity and goodwill. Several heathens have volunteered their services in rearing this Christian temple. Lua - the quondam persecutor of the Christians - has very kindly presented us with several large skeins of cynet [plaited straw or similar], and has tendered his assistance in the preparation of the various materials for the house of prayer. Soroangkali - the king’s brother has presented the Chief of the Christian party with a large roll of cynet. The chapel when finished will probably hold between 500 & 600 persons. May it be the birthplace of many immortal souls.’

8 August 1839
‘The Capn took the vessel to Koro to buy yams. Koro is an island about forty miles from Somosomo. The inhabitants have had but little intercourse with foreigners, and are in a very barbarous state. A few weeks ago the male inhabitants of one town were treacherously decoyed by the inhabitants of another into a yam plantation, and all put to death. The women and children are enslaved. As we approached that part of the island where the Capn expected to find a harbour, the vessel was nearly on a reef. In five seconds more she would probably have struck, but she instantly obeyed the helm; and thus to all appearance we were saved from a watery grave. The Capn steered to another part of the island, and there dropped anchor.’

1 November 1839
‘This morning a little after break of day, I was surprised to hear the sound of voices talking very loudly, near the front fence of the Mission premises, and going out to ascertain the cause of their noise found a human head in our garden. This was the head of the old man whose body had been abused on the beach. The arm of the body had been broken by a bullet, wh. passed through the bone near the shoulder, & the upper part of the skull had been knocked off with a club. The head had been thrown into our garden during the night, with the intention no doubt of annoying us and shocking our feelings. The victims of war were brought from Verata, & were killed by the Bau people. 260 human beings were killed & brought away by victors to be roasted and eaten. Many women & children were taken alive to be kept for slaves. About 30 living children were hoisted up to the mast head as flags of triumph. The motions of the canoes when sailing soon killed the helpless creatures, & silenced their piercing cries. Other children were taken alive to Bau that the boys might learn the art of Fijian warfare by firing arrows @ them and beating them with clubs.

As far as I can learn, the war originated with the Bau people. Some time ago they killed three Verata men as sacrifices during the building of a temple. The Verata men revenged the injury by killing five Bau men. And thus the war commenced. A fortnight ago a party of Bau men pillaged many of the plantations of Verata, & killed several persons: and this week they went in greater numbers, - ravaged part of the territories of the king of Verata, burned two settlements, killed 260 human beings, and brought away many prisoners. For two days they have been tearing and devouring one another like wolves and hyaenas. O that a door of usefulness were opened in these parts of Feejee, that we might publish the glad tidings of the advent of the Prince of Peace. In the meanwhile, they will not listen to our report. But they are in the hands of God. . .’

Many little matters

Today marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of David Elisha Davy, an antiquarian who spent the most part of his life travelling around the English county of Suffolk in order to collect detailed information on the county’s history. Although he never wrote that history, the collection of his manuscripts in the British Library today constitute a unique resource of materials for modern Suffolk historians. More than a century after his death, a pocket diary he kept while on his travels was found in a second hand bookshop. In it, Davy wrote about how his little book should be a ‘Companion in my Excursions’ so that ‘many little matters will then be preserved’.

Davy was born on 16 June 1769 the son of a farmer in Suffolk. His uncle, Eleazar Davy of Yoxford, sheriff of the county in 1770, who had no children of his own, paid for his education. He was schooled at Bungay grammar, and then at Yoxford under Samuel Forster. He matriculated from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1785, graduated in 1790, and was ordained deacon in 1792. Although he worked for a while as a curate, he abandoned the church; in 1803, on the death of his uncle, he took over his estates, based at Yoxford, borrowing money to hold onto the debt-laden properties. He served as a local magistrate and as deputy lieutenant.

However, around 1805, Davy took up what would become his life’s work, gathering an immense collection of antiquarian and genealogical details for a history of Suffolk. Together with his friend Henry Jermyn, he painstakingly toured the country, taking notes and issuing questionnaires. Mounting debts led him to place his estate in the hands of a bank, thereafter he decamped from Yoxford to a friend’s house at Ufford, near Woodbridge. When Jermyn died in 1820, Davy took up with the Revd John Wareyn Darby as companion.

Although Davy published a few historical works anonymously, he never actually published a history of Suffolk. Nevertheless, it is the large collection (131 manuscript volumes) of information he amassed that remains his abiding legacy. He died in 1851, not having married; almost all of his manuscripts (and much correspondence) were soon to find their way to the British Museum (along with those written by Jermyn which had been given to the museum in 1830). There is not much further information about Davy online, other than at Wikipedia and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required).

Davy also left behind a diary. This was found in 1979 by John Blatchly, headmaster of Ipswich School and a noted Suffolk historian, in a secondhand bookshop. He published an article on the diary in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Arcaeology and History in 1981 (which can be read online). The following year the diary was published, as edited by Blatchly for the Suffolk Records Society, with the title A Journal of Excursions Through the County of Suffolk, 1823–1844 (The Boydell Press). In his introduction, Blatchly explains more about the diary:

‘My discovery of Davy’s Journal on a North Norfolk bookseller’s shelves in October 1979 was, I like to think, providential. Its beginning coincides with that of its author’s exile from his inherited estate and home, The Grove, Yoxford. He had not kept a diary during the years of his travels with Henry Jermyn of Sibton, and the preface written in 1823 tells of a conscious decision that this little book should be ‘Companion in my Excursions’ so that ‘many little matters will then be preserved’ which would not otherwise find a place in his Collections. And so it accompanied him for more than 4,000 miles. Davy was not one to allow a personal preference or opinion to intruded into his formal work but the Journal is quite different; private feelings are not excluded and we are permitted more than a glimpse of a man who, after his resignation from public office, lived very privately. In reading the Journal we are far from feeling that we are trespassing, but we do gain a revealing insight into his methods of work and travel, his family and friendship, and the reception he enjoyed from acquaintances. We learn much, too, about the temperament and madders of this gentleman antiquary whose work should and may still earn him greater fame than hitherto; his reticence only is to blame for any neglect hitherto.’

And here is a sample of the kind of daily entries Davy made into his pocket diary.

29 March 1823
‘Barlee sent me in his gig to Pakefield Church, 6 Miles. I there took some additional Notes both in the church, & churchyard, copying the Verses in the latter, & rubbing off the two brasses still remaining in the former. I had not time to examine the Registers; but compleated the church notes for this Parish.’
 
8 April 1823
‘Went from Wrentham by the Mail Coach to Kirkley, where I took full church notes, not forgetting to examine the church chest, which I found the key of. Did not meet with the Registers, & had not time to enquire after them.

Went again into Pakefield Church to compleat rubbing off the brass of J. Bowff, which I had before left incompleat: So that I shall not have occasion to visit this church again.

Walked back to Wrentham. 7 Miles.’

10 April 1823
‘Walked from Wrentham to Brampton Church 4 Miles. Went into the church, took some few notes, before omitted, & from the head stones in the churchyard:

Returned by Uggeshall 1 1/2 Mile, to look again at the inscription on the Steeple, & to see whether I had copied it correctly. To Wrentham 3 Miles.’

17 April 1823
‘Went from Wrentham by the Mail Coach to Kirkley, 6 Miles; walked from thence by Mutford Bridge to Oulton Church, 3 Miles; Took full notes there, both inside & out, & rubbed off the three brasses in the Chancel, in completing which I was near 5 hours employed. Had not time to enquire after the Registers & Terrier. In my way through the Village of Oulton, I observed on a low building on the left hand side of the way a shield of Arms cut in stone, but they seem to have been lately coloured over with black & white, & I took no account of them. These must be examined & enquired into, when I go after the Registers & Terrier. They probably belong to some School or
Almshouse.

Walked back to Wrentham, 8 Miles.’

18 April 1823
‘Went in Barlee’s gig with my sister to Southwold, & took the opportunity of being there, to copy the Inscriptions on the Head stones in the churchyard. I had intended to go into the church to take some further notes there, & to rub off again the brass there, that which I now have, been very imperfect, but I had not time.’
 
17 May 1823
‘Having occasion to see Mr. Robinson, I walked to his new House on the Heath, which he has lately built in a most singular situation. It stands in Dunwich, on the bare heath, about a quarter of a Mile from the Sea, & on so bad a Soil & so bleak a spot, that none of the trees, of which he had planted many, have hitherto grown. From thence I went to Dunwich, & took a few notes, all that were necessary, of the remains of All Sts. Church there. Distance there & back 8 Miles.’

22 September 1827
‘At the Parsonage at Hoxne. Walked to Syleham Church, to get the brasses there, & to pick up any other small matters I might have left at my former visit, & what might have been placed there since.

From Syleham Church walked to Brockdish Church, to see whether there was any thing in the churchyard which might be useful. I did not go into the church. From Brockdish, I walked on to Thorp Abbot’s; went into the church there, but found not a single memorial within, nor anything in my way without the church. Returned to Hoxne by the Water Mill.’

24 September 1827
‘Doughty drove me to Wingfield Church, where I found a great treat; & having the whole morning to myself, I employed it in the church, from I obtained full notes.

I afterwards walked to the Castle, which I had not seen years for more than 30 years; but had only time to reconnoitre the outsid

The Incumbent of Wingfield resides at Hoxne & has the Registers with him there. I was therefore obliged to postpone the examination of them.’

25 September 1827
‘Went, with Doughty to Denham, where I got some few further notes from the church there. I afterwards borrowed my friend’s gig, & went to Horham & Redlingfield Churches, to reexamine & pick up what I could there. I was rather surprized to find all the by roads in that neighbourhood so good.’

14 July 1831
‘I went by the Mail this morning to Little Glemham, having agreed to meet Darby there to proceed with him on to Iken & Snape. Arriving at Glemham before 7 o’clock, I had a good opportunity of visiting the church, which I had not seen for more than 20 years: besides I was very anxious to get impressions of the 3 brasses, in the Dormitory, upon the Glemhams. These I obtained, together with such other notes as I found, beyond my former ones. I was more than 2 hours in doing all this, & had then to wait half an hour for my companion, who at last arrived, when we proceeded on thro’ Blaxhall, where we stopped opposite to the Ship Public house there to look at a coat of arms carved on Oak, & fixed to the front of a cottage: these were formerly in Sudborn Hall; it was bought by the present owner abt. 30 years ago at an auction in the parish; & contains the arms & quarterings of Sr. Michael Stanhope Knt. a former owner of the Hall. We found the road from hence to Iken very heavy & bad, & were obliged to walk a good part of the way, & when we got to Iken, had some distance to go to obtain the key of the church, for which we were ill repaid, for the church contains not a single inscription, or monumental memorial of any kind: we found a few inscriptions in the churchyard: the building stands in a singular situation; on an elevated bank by the side of the river, far away from any house, & in the most inconvenient position for the population, which fortunately is but small.’

7 July 1833
‘Being resident for a few days at Aldeburgh, I of course paid a visit to the church, where I found several new monuments &c. as well within as without. In the churchyard I found considerable gleanings: the names on the head stones I had not before taken.’