Among the archive files, I found the following public notice in the Salem Gazette, Newbury & Marblehead Advertiser.

Sept 13 1774
To the Printer of the Salem Gazette , &c.
Mr. Russell,
You are requested to publish the following Bond, wrote by a Young Lady in Boston in 1737 (who was much grieved at the pernicious practice of Tea-Drinking which then began to prevail among us,) for the benefit of all concerned:

Know all men – and women – [old maids, young women, old and young widows, great snuff-takers] by these presents that I, Jane Teakittle, in the township of Green-tea, and county of Bohea and Province of Loaf-sugar, do owe and stand indebted to Margery Tea-pot in the township of Cream-Pot in the county of Bread and Butter, and province of Loaf-sugar aforesaid, in the sum of £50 lawful money in cups and saucers, to be paid unto said Margery Tea-pot, on or before the 10th day of Hot-water next infusing. As witness my hand this 9th day of Milk-Biiket and in the 51st year of Gossips reign, 1738.
/s/ Jane Teakittle

Sealed and delivered in presence of us,

A Trip Down History Lane

The Salem Gazette printed Jane Teakittle’s broadside in 1774, but she wrote her message in 1737. Most students suffering through an American history class briefly encounter the Boston Tea Party and quickly move on to the Battle of Bunker Hill. But the history of Americans’ relationship with tea began much earlier.

By 1756 when the French and Indian war broke out in the American colonies, the drinking of tea was a cherished domestic ritual provided over by women. Tea and its accompanying tableware was indicative of upper social status. When the war ended in 1763, Great Britain and her North American colonies emerged victorious, but also deeply in debt. Parliament passed the Stamp Act designed to recoup the cost by requiring a stamp, or duty, on all printed materials used for commercial or legal use, including playing cards.

Americans were furious and argued that only their individual legislatures had the power to impose taxes, giving rise to the famous slogan: No Taxation Without Representation. They also took to the streets to attack Crown appointed stamp distributors. Boycotts of British goods weakened sales to the point that British merchants asked Parliament to repeal the law which it did in 1766.

The following year, Parliament passed the Townsend Revenue Act which taxed tea, glass, paper, and paint, and used the proceeds to pay the Royal Governors. This replaced the previous method of allowing the colonial assemblies to authorize payment. Americans responded with a boycott of all taxed goods. In 1770 Parliament repealed all the taxes except the tax on tea, a lone symbol of Parliament’s right to tax her colonies.
Americans responded to the change in various ways. Some returned to drinking tea as much as before. Some decided they would only drink Dutch tea which was smuggled into the colonies, as well as being cheaper than legal tea. Some stopped drinking tea altogether.

These decisions impacted the East India Company which soon found itself with a surplus of tea rotting in its warehouses. Company success was important to the British economy, so Parliament raised the tea stakes by passing the Tea Act in 1773. This piece of legislation did several things.

• It allowed the Company to ship tea directly to the colonies without stopping in England and paying port taxes. By passing savings on to consumers, the Company could lower the price of its tea below the price of smuggled tea.
• And, the act commissioned specific Company agents with the sole right to sell Company tea. In doing so, the Company cut out colonial merchants who were so furious they united with the Sons of Liberty to crush their competitors.

Once again, tea consumption was a political act. Matters boiled to a head with the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773 when 342 chests of tea, each weighting 100 pounds, were dumped into Boston Harbor.
Parliament was furious. In retaliation, it passed the Coercive Acts, known in America as the Intolerable Acts, to punish Massachusetts colony. These acts closed Boston Harbor, gave royal protection to officials involved in riot suppression or revenue collection, and placed the election of government officials under direct Crown control.
Soon, no patriotic American consumed tea, replacing it with coffee and chocolate as the hot beverage of choice.

In 1774 John Adams wrote his wife an anecdote illustrating this revolutionary social change:
“When I first came to this House it was late in the Afternoon, and I had ridden 35 miles at least. “Madam” said I to Mrs. Huston, “is it lawfull for a weary Traveller to refresh himself with a Dish of Tea provided it has been honestly smuggled, or paid no Duties?”

“No sir, said she, we have renounced all Tea in this Place. I cant make Tea, but I’le make you Coffee.” Accordingly I have drank Coffee every Afternoon since, and have borne it very well. Tea must be universally renounced. I must be weaned, and the sooner, the better.”

Likewise, Fashionable Ladies put aside their Tea-Tables in favor of Coffee

A Lady’s Adieu to Her Tea-Table
FAREWELL the Tea-board with your gaudy attire,
Ye cups and ye saucers that I did admire;
To my cream pot and tongs I now bid adieu;
That pleasure’s all fled that I once found in you.

Farewell pretty chest that so lately did shine,
With hyson and congo and best double fine;
Many a sweet moment by you I have sat,
Hearing girls and old maids to tattle and chat;
And the spruce coxcomb laugh at nothing at all,
Only some silly work that might happen to fall.

No more shall my teapot so generous be
In filling the cups with this pernicious tea,
For I’ll fill it with water and drink out the same,
Before I’ll lose LIBERTY that dearest name,
Because I am taught (and believe it is fact)
That our ruin is aimed at in the late act,
Of imposing a duty on all foreign Teas,
Which detestable stuff we can quit when we please.

LIBERTY’S The Goddess that I do adore,
And I’ll maintain her right until my last hour,
Before she shall part I will die in the cause,
For I’ll never be govern’d by tyranny’s laws.

And thus it came to pass that America became a land of coffee-drinkers.

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Family Being Served Tea. 1745.

Slop Basin. c. 1770.

Sugar Tongs, c. 1770.

Silver Spoons, c. 1770

Burning of Stamp Act, 1903.

Teapot. Stamp Act Repealed.

Arms of the Honorable the East India Company.

Boston Tea Party.

John Adams by Mather Brown.

18th Century Tea Service.

Tea & Gossip. Robert Payton Reid.

18th century water jug.

Liberty in form of Goddess of Youth.

The post Jane Teakittle, Tea Boycotts & American Revolution first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

While spending time sheltering-in-place at home, I, like many other people, considered previous pandemics. Many media stories compare COVID-19 to the 1918 H1N1 virus pandemic. But that event is one of many throughout history, including small pox, also known as the speckled monster, a virulent viral disease once endemic in Europe, Asia, and Arabia. It killed three out of every ten infected people, leaving the survivors with pockmarked scars, occasional blindness, and immunity to future exposure to the disease.

In 1562 at the age of 29, Queen Elizabeth I contracted the disease. Treatment consisted of prayer, balancing bodily humors through bloodletting, and wrapping the victim in a scarlet cloth that allowed red light to heal the rash and underlying disease.

Elizabeth survived with what was said to be light scarring, but for the rest of her life she applied a white facial mask mixture of vinegar and lead, illustrated by her portrait. Many believe the queen’s later hair loss and missing teeth can be attributed to lead poisoning.

Mary Montagu’s Discovery

Two hundred years later, small pox continued to kill 400,000 people a year. In 1715 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu survived the disease, emerging from her sickbed with scars and without eyelashes.

The next year, Mary accompanied her husband on his posting as British ambassador to Constantinople and made a significant discovery. In her experience, people in Constantinople seldom suffered from small pox. Mary’s investigations led her to a preventative treatment that may have originated in China. Writing home, Mary reported,

There is a set of old women, who make it their business to perform the operation, every autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated. People send to one another to know if any of their family has a mind to have the small-pox; they make parties for this purpose, and when they are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen together) the old woman comes with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks what vein you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer her, with a large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch) and puts into the vein as much matter as can lie upon the head of her needle, and after that, binds up the little wound.

Mary was so impressed and so desperate to protect her four-year-old son from the disease, she arranged for Dr. Charles Maitland to perform the procedure on her child. 

When Mary returned home, her discovery was treated with disdain until another small pox outbreak threatened London in 1721. Mary arranged to have her young daughter inoculated before an audience that included the King’s physician. Caroline, the Princess of Wales, sponsored further research by offering seven prisoners awaiting execution at Newgate Prison the chance to be inoculated instead. All survived.

Small Pox Inoculation in America

News of the procedure traveled to the American colonies where New England preacher Cotton Mather arranged for Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to inoculate his children. Inoculation carried a number of risks, including death, but the prospect of lifelong immunity to small pox persuaded people to undergo the treatment.

In 1764 John Adams postponed his wedding to Abigail during a small pox epidemic, and decided to undergo the three week procedure and recuperation. Several weeks before the procedure, doctors placed him on a diet excluding meat, milk and eggs which he ignored. Immediately before inoculation, he ingested a strong purgative to clear his system. John reported the worst part of the treatment was “a long and total abstinence from every thing in nature that has any taste, two heavy vomits, one heavy cathartick, four and twenty mercurial and antimonial pills, and three weeks close confinement to an house.”

 Twelve years later while John was away at the Continental Congress, Abigail took her four children under the age of eleven to her aunt and uncle’s house in Boston so Dr. Thomas Bullfinch could perform the inoculation. Afterwards, Abigail wrote John that “the little ones are very sick and puke every morning,” but otherwise doing well.

In 1796 Edward Jenner introduced a different method of inoculation. He observed that dairymaids often developed blisters from cow pox on their hands. People inoculated with cow pox pus had a milder after affect and still became immune from small pox. As this method became more accepted, rates of small pox dropped. The fight against small pox continued until 1980 when the World Health Organization declared the disease eradicated.

There are some lessons to draw from the small pox example. The most important one is that a vaccine against COVID-19 will be developed. Not as quickly as we would like, but not as slowly as the one that stopped small pox. Secondly, most remedies prescribed in the 16th century are not useful today. We no longer believe being wrapped in a red blanket will cure disease. Nor, I suggest, will ultra-violent light.

Until COVID-19 is under control, our preventatives are simple. Everyone should

• Washing their hands thoroughly several times a day
• Wear a face mask in public spaces
• Stay home as much as possible

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Queen Elizabeth, c1575, The Darnely Portrait

Lady Mary Montague, 1716, by Charles Jervas

An Account of Small Pox by Boylston. Welcome Images.

John Adams, 1766, by Benjamin Blyth

Abigail Adams, 1766, by Benjamin Blyth

Portrait of Edward Jenner. Welcome Images

“Abigail Adams and the Inoculation Decision.” Presidential History Blog. Dec. 4, 2017.

“Love in the Time of Smallpox.” Plodding through the Presidents. Apr. 13, 2014.

Thomas Hager. “How One Daring Woman Introduced the Idea of Smallpox Inoculations to England.” Time. Mar. 5, 2019.

Marcy McCall MacBain. “Unhealthy Times of Queen Elizabeth I.” CEBM. Oct. 17, 2018.

The post VICTORY OVER SMALL POX first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

This past Friday, January 20, Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States. The election was close. The popular vote went to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, but the Electoral Vote – the vote that actually elects the president went to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump — Republican — 304 Electoral Votes — 62,980,160 Popular Vote,  45.9% Pop. Vote
Hillary Clinton — Democrat — 227 Electoral Votes — 65,845,063 Popular Vote,  48% Pop. Vote

Not only was the election close, but many Americans find it impossible to comprehend how the candidate with a majority of the popular vote could possibly lose the presidential election.

So where did the Electoral College come from?

The ELECTORAL COLLEGE is the result of substantial debate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 — a time of very different sensibilities. Delegates couldn’t envision of time when the United States would have either political parties or universal voting rights. Most states restricted the vote to those citizens who held property.

Everyone at the Constitutional Convention assumed George Washington would be the first president – as indeed he was. Washington was the only name most Americans knew. The delegates worried that after Washington, people wouldn’t know of viable candidates outside of their own state. They thought of the Electors as a special type of Congress named by each state. A state’s number of Electors would be determined by the total number of senators and representatives elected by each state. This would allow each state’s population to be a factor.

Current Electoral College Map

Originally, the Elector could vote for any two candidates as long as one was not from their home state. The man with the most votes would be president. The first runner-up would be vice-president. If no one held a winning majority, the election would go into the House of Representatives (the only body directly elected by the voters). Each state would have one vote. The Founders expected the Electoral College to function more as a nominating body with the House making the actual selection of president.

TODAY each political party within a state presents a slate of Electors. When voters cast their ballots for President, they also elect the Electors.* The Electors aren’t required to vote according to a state’s popular vote, but they usually do.

The tension between the numbers in the voting population and the total number of a state’s congressional delegation is meant to prevent more populous states from dominating smaller states.

CONTROVERISAL ELECTIONS

The Trump-Clinton Election is the most recent in a long line of controversial, closely-fought elections. I count eight such elections, though others might point to more or less. These elections demonstrate the changing electorate as Americans debate the future of the nation. I propose to look at four this week and four next week.

1796 ELECTION

George Washington served two terms as president, which he thought was enough for any man. Since Washington took office in 1790, factions had developed in the electorate. Americans didn’t have formal political parties, but they were beginning to coalesce around key political figures.

Since it wasn’t appropriate then for candidates to openly campaign, their friends and allies did the job. Each state chose Electors in a different way and Electors could vote how they wished – even for candidates of opposing “parties.” Candidates John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had widely differing views on almost everything and could hardly stand each other.

John Adams — Federalist — 71 Electoral Votes, 51.1%
Thomas Jefferson — Democratic-Republican — 68 Electoral Votes 48.9%
Charles Pinckney — Federalist — 59 Electoral Votes
Aaron Burr — Democratic-Republican — 30 Electoral Votes

1800 ELECTION – THE REVOLUTION OF 1800

The Founders thought that once a candidate was elected to office, everyone would put aside their differences in favor of the “greater good.” This proved not to be the case. By 1800 Federalists and Democratic-Republicans were clearly in opposition. The Federalist party also split between Adams and Alexander Hamilton.
The campaign became decidedly uncivil. Federalists attacked Jefferson as a godless supporter of the French Revolution who would unleash bloody terror on the country. Democratic-Republicans charged Adams was a fool and a tyrant who wanted people to call him “Your Excellency.”

Thomas Jefferson — Democratic-Republican — 73 Electoral Votes
Aaron Burr — Democratic-Republican — 73 Electoral Votes
John Adams — Federalist — 65 Electoral Votes
Charles Pinckney — Federalist — 64 Electoral Votes

ELECTORAL VOTE TIED – THE HOUSE VOTES

Jefferson and Burr tied at 73 Electoral Votes each which threw the election into the Federalist controlled House of Representatives. This presents an interesting situation since the tied vote was between Democratic-Republicans. Thirty-five ballots were cast without result. Finally Alexander Hamilton convinced a few delegations who refused to vote for a Democratic-Republican to turn in blank ballots. This allowed the victory to go to Jefferson. Burr was enraged. In 1804 Burr killed Hamilton in a duel.

1804 Burr-Hamilton Duel

1824 ELECTION – THE CORRUPT BARGAIN

Politics changed after 1800. More people had voting rights. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1804. This required that the president and vice-president be from the same political party. It also stipulated that when an election was thrown into the House of Representatives, only the top three candidates would be considered.

There were four candidates in 1824. John Quincy Adams, son of the second president, would become the last president to wear knee-breeches. Adams’ primary rival was Andrew Jackson, known as the victor at the Battle of New Orleans. There were two other candidates: William Crawford and Henry Clay.

Andrew Jackson — Democratic-Republican — 99 Electoral Votes, 37.9% — 151,271 Popular Votes 41.3%

John Quincy Adams — Democratic-Republican — 84 Electoral Votes, 37.9% — 113,122 Popular Votes, 30.9%

William Crawford — Democratic-Republican — 41 Electoral Votes, 15.7% — 40,856 Popular Votes, 11.2%

Henry Clay — Democratic-Republican — 37 Electoral Votes, 14.2% — 47,531 Popular Votes, 13%

Jackson had a majority of Electoral Votes and popular votes, but his percentage of Electoral Votes tied with those of John Quincy Adams. The election went to the House of Representatives. Henry Clay was eliminated and told his supporters to give their votes to John Quincy Adams. Jackson supporters believed Clay had stolen Jackson’s election. Their suspicions were confirmed when Adams named Clay as his Secretary of State.

1828 ELECTION

Jackson supporters immediately began their campaign for the 1828 election. Campaign Manager Martin van Buren put together a political coalition that held until 1860. Jackson’s party became the Democratic Party on a platform of States Rights and Popular Democracy.

Jackson supporters made much of their candidate’s nickname – Old Hickory. Jackson, they said, was tough as hickory wood. Supporters put up hickory poles. They distributed hickory toothpicks and held barbecues fired by hickory chips. They attacked Adams for his legalism, for marrying a foreign-born wife, and spread the rumor that during his diplomatic career Adams procured American virgins for the Russian czar.

Adams’ supporters accused Jackson of murders, personal violence, and living with his wife before her divorce was final.

Andrew Jackson — Democratic — 178 Electoral Votes, 68.2% — 642,553 Popular Votes, 56.1%
John Quincy Adams — National-Republican — 83 Electoral Votes, 31.8% — 500,897 Popular Votes, 43.6%

Between 1796 and 1828 the United States moved from a largely agrarian economy to one of booming commerce and expansion. The electorate expanded to include most white males. The physical geography of the country grew from a boundary at the Mississippi River to one that extended that reached westward into the Northwest Territories. An increasing number of Americans concluded that slavery was not compatible with the concept that “all men are created equal.” Elections became more volatile. The 1860 presidential election would trigger what some historians call the Second American Revolution.

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*Nebraska and Maine have a proportional distribution of Electors.

Images from Wikimedia Commons:

George Washington by Edward Savage. U.S. Public Domain

Electoral College Map for 2012, 2016, and 2020. U.S. Public Domain

John Adams by John Trumbull. U.S. Public Domain

Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale. U.S. Public Domain

Aaron Burr Drawing. U.S. Public Domain

John Quincy Adams by George Peter Alexander Healy. U.S. Public Domain

Andrew Jackson by Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl. U.S. Public Domain

Data Taken From:

American Presidency Project.
The Miller Center.
U.S. Electoral College 

The post The Electoral College & Historic Controversy first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

DEBATE ENSUED

John Dickinson argued for reconciliation. If the Congress passed Lee’s motion, he declared, it would be like braving a storm in a “skiff made of paper.”

John Adams rose to rebut. A summer storm broke. Adams argued that “Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, measures in which the lives and liberties of millions, born and unborn are most essentially interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of revolution, the most complete, the most unexpected, and remarkable of any in the history of the world.”

MEMBERS VOTED ON JULY 2.

Two days later the Second Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence. It wasn’t until August 2 that the members actually signed the document.

Thirteen separate colonies became thirteen separate states united for the purpose of freeing themselves from Great Britain. Now the hard work began. Each state viewed itself as an independent nation participating in alliance. All major acts had to be be unanimous vote. In 1781 Congress adopted the official Articles of Confederation. The central Congress could conduct foreign affairs and wars. But it couldn’t compel any state to fulfill treaty obligations. This proved tricky after independence was granted in 1783.

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Four years later Congress authorized a Constitutional Convention to propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation. Delegates eventually concluded a new document was needed. One that began “We the People” to demonstrate that power was not held by individual states but within the central government of a nation. Delegates concluded their work in 1787; the ratifiction process took two years. And still, the Constitution’s interpretation changes to meet the constantly changing needs a vibrant society.

The enormity of this accomplishment is startlingly clear in the context of “Brexit,” a referendum on whether Great Britain should continue its membership in the European Union founded in 1993. The result was a vote for Britain’s exit from the EU. What that will mean for Britain remains unknown.

The European Union began its official life in 1993 with the motto “United in Diversity.” In this instance, unity did not hold.

In 1783 no nation expected American unity to last. People identified with their states, not the nation. But in their desire to crete a “more perfect union” Americans committed themselves to a great experiment that has stood the test of time. It is our unity and continual determination to live up to the ideals in the Declaraton of Independence that we celebrate on the Fourth of July.

John Adams observed to Abigail: “The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”

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Quotations taken from David McCullough. John Adams. NY: Simon & Schuster. 2001.

Featured Image: John Trumbull. Declaration of Independence (c1818). Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons

Pictures:

Charles Wilson Peale. John Dickinson. Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons.

John Trumbull. John Adams. Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons

Junius Brutus Sterns. Washington at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons.

Fireworks at 4th of July Celebration. Whitman Air Force Base, 2013. Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons.

A Capitol Fourth. PBS.

This Day in History, Aug 2. 1776 Delegates sign Declaration of Independence

Fascinating Facts about the Declaration of Independence.

The post Our Ongoing Accomplishment first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.