SOPHIA DUNBAR (LAPHAM)

Transcription

1 HENRY S RELATIVES (LAPHAM) 1781 Sophia Dunbar was born to Mary Jones Dunbar and the Reverend Asa Dunbar. DUNBAR FAMILY The birth occasioned a report to the maternal grandfather, Colonel Elisha Jones: Dear Sir, I have y e happiness of informing you that Mrs. Dunbar is comfortably abed with a Daughter. She was delivered about three O Clk this morning, after a moderate illness of thirty-six hours. Her circumstances seem very agreeable, & y e child is a perfect & promising child. We have already named her after both her grand- Mammas and her immediate mother, and we will endeavor that she shall not disgrace y e name wh. they have born with so much honor. February 17, Saturday: Luther Lapham was born in Marshfield, Massachusetts, the sixth child of Daniel Lapham and Sharah Sherman Lapham Fall: Mary Jones Dunbar, Sophia Dunbar, Louisa Dunbar and Cynthia Dunbar s excellent adventure: After May 26, 1849: Mary Dunbar widow of Asa Dunbar (first a minister of the 1st church in Salem afterward a laweyer in Keene ) with her 3 children Sophia aged 14 Louisa 10 & Cynthia 8, health failing went from Keen to visit her Brother Nathan at Frenchman s Bay & her brothers Josiah Elisha Simeon Stephen at Sissiboo. She took passage in the fall of 95 in a 90 ton wood sloop with a crew of 3 men beside the Capt. Sloop going down empty. She had lost her sails coming up not sea worthy she had fallen down into the stream bending her sails were put aboard Saturday afternoon by a boat, found her down in the stream. Sunday fine weather but sick Were all in berths at midnight Sunday. struck Matinicus rock. They went at sundown from Boston to Goldsborough hands said they had touched every rock betwen B. & G. Cried all hands on deck. Water came in so fast as to wet her before they got up on deck. She exclaimed Capt where are

2 (LAPHAM) we God almighty only knows for I dont! The Capt was pulling a rope {illegible letters} 1805 March 10, Sunday: Luther Lapham got married in Boston with Sophia Dunbar (before the Reverend Samuel Stilman of the West Church) March 29, Easter Sunday: According to the records of the West Church in Boston as investigated by Judy Fichtenbaum of the Concord Museum, on this day a son, Charles Howard Lapham, was born to Mr Luther Lapham & wife (Sophia Dunbar Lapham). CHARLES DUNBAR Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers discovered the sole asteroid visible with the naked eye, Vesta (this was the 4th asteroid to be viewed from Earth). ASTRONOMY Responses to the Litany for chorus by Samuel Wesley was performed for the 1st time, in St. Paul s Cathedral, London. This had been intended for last Christmas but had been postponed until Easter, today. April 19, Sunday: Luther Lapham was identified as one of those who, making a publick Profession of their Faith, owned the Covenant in the West Church in Boston. Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1 day 19 of 4 M / Too much lightness of mind this Morng before meeting, but was more quiet than I expected. we sat in silence, & a pretty solid meeting. In the Afternoon O Williams delivered a short testimony. - after meeting took a walk round the Hall - roving thoughts & fruitless castle building. Oh that I could but attain to a greater degree of religious firmness, my mind is 2 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith

3 (LAPHAM) often humbled under a sense of my short comings. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS December 6, Sunday: Obed Baker of West Dedham (now Westwood), Massachusetts got married with local schoolteacher Betsey Metcalf. According to church records as investigated by Judy Fichtenbaum of the Concord Museum, on this day Mrs. Sophia Lapham, wife of Mr Luther Lapham & daughter of the Reverend A. Dunbar, received communion as a member of the congregation of the West Church in Boston. ASA DUNBAR Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1 day 6 of 12 M / Our meetings were silent & to me favor d opportunitys, feeling the sweet springing up of life & a little reneweal of my spiritual strength may I be duly thankful therefor Spent the eveng as usual on first days RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 1818 According to the investigations of Judy Fichtenbaum of the Concord Museum, during this year a probate record of guardianship was made in Boston and Concord. Sophia Dunbar Lapham signed a deposition that she was the mother of Charles H. Lapham and that his father Luther Lapham had deceased. 1 This record indicates that the father had been a tailor. CHARLES DUNBAR 1822 February 18, 2d day (Monday): The four disruptive Quakers from Lynn, Benjamin Shaw, John Alley, Junior, Jonathan Buffum, and Preserved Sprague, were arraigned in Salem court, declined to produce bail, and were returned to confinement. In the records of Boston: Be it enacted, etc., as follows:... Sophia Lapham, widow, may take the name of Sophia Dunbar, and that her son, Charles Howard Lapham, a minor, may take the name of Charles Howard Dunbar We have no actual record of what happened to this person and are therefore confronted with the possibility that this unusual record-production was intended to place a civil mask over a husband and father s desertion of his family. Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project 3

4 (LAPHAM) 1850 The 7th national census. The national economy was supporting 938 photographers. The %age of slaves in the border slave states had been gradually declining, while this had been meanwhile very slowly rising farther south. The slave states that would eventually remain within the federal union had at this point come to enslave only 16.5% of their population and that proportion would be continuing to drop, while the slave states that would eventually form the new confederacy were at this point enslaving 38.6% of their population and this proportion would be continuing to creep upward: 3 % of Americans Enslaved Union Slave States States of Confederacy According to this census, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, Charles H. Dunbar, age 42, was a laborer with property worth $3,000, living with his wife Mary L. Dunbar, age 39, from New Hampshire. As of 1790 the center of the human population of the USA had been a little town just about a day s travel inland 2. Such a renouncing of a father s name is such an unusual event as to raise the suspicions of a historian. Perhaps the father who was being said to have deceased but for whom no actual record of date or manner of death has ever been produced was still alive. Note also the interesting fact that this name being chosen, Charles Howard Dunbar, was not even a unique one, as there was already a Charles Howard Dunbar, a different person, who had been born in 1811 in West Bridgewater and would marry there in Cramer, Clayton E. BLACK DEMOGRAPHIC DATA, : A SOURCEBOOK, Greenwood Publishing Group, forthcoming in Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith

5 (LAPHAM) from Baltimore. By this period the center of population had relocated. (Nowadays, of course, we ve all been coming from one or another center in Missouri.) Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project 5

6 (LAPHAM) May 1, Wednesday: Cousin Charles Howard Dunbar of Haverhill summoned Henry Thoreau to survey for a Nehemiah Emmerson: You probably think ere this I have forgotten to [a]nswer your [l]etter but it is [not so]. I have waited untill now that I might send some definite Word about that Job I spoke of You will recollect I told you one of the owners [l]ived in Cincinate. He has come on [and] wishes to have the farm immediately [s]urveyed and [l]aid into house [l]ots there is some twenty acres of it so you see it is quite a Job and there will be probably some [small] Jobs. Mr Emmerson will wait untill you come which must by as soon as Thursday[.] I hope it will be so you can come as I have some Jobs to do on the [l]ots as soon as laid out & I think we both can make a good [li]ving at it[.] [L]et me [s]ee you if possible if not drop a line that we may not be in suspence. [A]ll well as usual[.] Give my best Respect to all and say to them we should be happy to see them at Haverhill[.] Thoreau would be traveling to Haverhill several times during this month, to complete this survey. View Henry Thoreau s personal working drafts of his surveys courtesy of AT&T and the Concord Free Public Library: (The official copy of this survey of course had become the property of the person or persons who had hired this Concord town surveyor to do their surveying work during the 19th Century. Such materials have yet to be recovered.) View this particular personal working draft of a survey in fine detail: DUNBAR FAMILY 6 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith

7 (LAPHAM) August 10, Friday: Calvin Wheeler Philleo s novel TWICE MARRIED: A STORY OF CONNECTICUT LIFE (New York: Dix & Edwards, 10 Park Place; London: Sampson Low & Son) was reprinted from Putnam s Monthly. According to the Massachusetts census of 1855 the Thoreau household consisted of John Thoreau, 69, M[ale]; Cynthia, 69, F[emale]; Henry D., 38, M[ale]; Sophia E., 34, F[emale]; Sophia Dunbar, 74, F[emale]; Louisa Dunbar, 69, F[emale]. Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau and Louisa Dunbar were listed as born in New Hampshire, all others in Massachusetts. The father was listed as Manufacturer, Henry Thoreau as Gentleman, and (of course) no occupations were listed for homemakers. 4 (The census taker for Concord was SOPHIA E. THOREAU Sheriff Sam Staples.) 1855 TWICE MARRIED, A NOVEL Aug.10. P.M. To Nagog. Middle of huckleberrying. (then no more entries until August 19th) October 23, Tuesday: Cousin Charles Howard Dunbar reported that, at the recent Cattle Show in Haverhill, his horse had drawn 5,286 pounds up the hill from Hale s factory. According to Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Henry Thoreau s Uncle Charles Jones Dunbar had been in the practice of mimicking a currently popular ventriloquist, magician, and juggler named Potter. In corroboration of this he quoted a snippet from Thoreau s journal: People are talking about my uncle Charles. George Minott [a sort of cousin of the Thoreaus] tells how he heard Tilly Brown once asking him to show him a peculiar inside lock in wrestling. Now, don t hurt me, - don t throw me hard. He struck his antagonist inside his knees with his feet, and so deprived him of his legs. Edmund Hosmer remembers his tricks in the bar-room, shuffling cards, etc.; he could do anything with cards, yet he did not gamble. He would toss up his hat, twirling it over and over, and catch it on his head invariably. He once wanted to live at Hosmer s, but the latter was afraid of him. Can t we study up something? he asked. Hosmer asked him into the house, and brought out apples and cider, and uncle Charles talked. You! said he, I burst the bully of Haverhill. He wanted to wrestle, would not be put off. Well, we won t wrestle in the 4. Volume 21 in the Massachusetts State Archives in Boston. The historian Lemuel Shattuck, the lawyer Moses Prichard, and the manufacturer William Monroe were also listed by census taker Sam Staples as gentlemen. Waldo Emerson was listed almost appropriately as Writer of Books and Ellery Channing almost appropriately as Do Nothing (see Friend Daniel Ricketson drawing made in 1856). Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project 7

8 (LAPHAM) house. So they went out to the yard, and a crowd got round. Come, spread some straw here, said uncle Charles, - I don t want to hurt him. He threw him at once. They tried again; he told them to spread more straw, and he burst him. Uncle Charles used to say that he had n t a single tooth in his head. The fact was they were all double, and I have heard that he lost about all of them by the time he was twenty-one. Ever since I knew him he could swallow his nose. He had a strong head, and never got drunk; would drink gin sometimes, but not to excess. Did not use tobacco, except snuff out of another s box, sometimes; was very neat in his person; was not profane, though vulgar. Now is the time for chestnuts. A stone cast against the trees shakes them down in showers upon one s head and shoulders. But I cannot excuse myself for using the stone. It is not innocent, it is not just, so to maltreat the tree that feeds us. I am not disturbed by considering that if I thus shorten its life I shall not enjoy its fruit so long, but am prompted to a more innocent course by motives purely of humanity. I sympathize with the tree, yet I heaved a big stone against the trunks like a robber, not too good to commit murder. I trust that I shall never do it again. These gifts should be accepted, not merely with gentleness, but with a certain humble gratitude. The tree whose fruit we would obtain should not be too rudely shaken even. It is not a time of distress, when a little haste and violence even might be pardoned. It is worse than boorish, it is criminal, to inflict an unnecessary injury on the tree that feeds or shadows us. Old trees are our parents, and our parents parents, perchance. If you would learn the secrets of Nature, you must practice more humanity than others. The thought that I was robbing myself by injuring the tree did not occur to me, but I was affected as if I had cast a rock at a sentient being, with a duller sense than my own, it is true, but yet a distant relation. Behold a man cutting down a tree to come at the fruit! What is the moral of such an act? 1858 May 7, Friday: Cousin Charles Howard Dunbar reported some family news and some news about the recent weather, that he had driven Grandmother over to Weston on May 2d, that on May 3d after a local snowstorm he had ridden in a sleigh, and that on May 4th and 5th, returning in a chaise to Concord, the trip had been considered dangerous on account of the drifts from this storm. DUNBAR FAMILY HENRY S RELATIVES 1859 March 27, Sunday: Cousin Charles Howard Dunbar reported that on the timbers of a very old house recently taken down in Haverhill, the chalk-marks made by the framers, numbering the sticks, were as fresh as if just made: It is remarkable how long many things may be preserved by excluding the air and light and dust, moisture, etc. Those chalk-marks on the chamber-floor joists and timbers of the Hunt house, one of which was read by many Feb. 1666, and all of which were in an ancient style of writing and expression, ye for the, etc., enfine Brown, were as fresh when exposed (having been plastered and cased over) as if made the day before. Yet a single day s rain completely obliterated some of them. Cousin Charles says that, on the timbers of a very old house recently taken down in Haverhill, the chalk-marks made by the framers, numbering the sticks, [were] as fresh as if just made. DUNBAR FAMILY 8 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith

9 (LAPHAM) 1860 According to census records, the Thoreau household in Concord included Sophia Dunbar, age 79, Henry D., Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, Louisa Dunbar, and Sophia E. Thoreau. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this read-only computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace resulting in navigation problems allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC Please contact the project at <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. It s all now you see. Yesterday won t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. Remark by character Garin Stevens in William Faulkner s INTRUDER IN THE DUST Prepared: December 16, 2013 Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project 9

10 (LAPHAM) ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT GENERATION HOTLINE This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot Laura (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. 10 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith

11 (LAPHAM) Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary writerly process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world. First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. Arrgh. Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project 11