{"id":9473,"date":"2018-05-06T11:32:42","date_gmt":"2018-05-06T17:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9473"},"modified":"2018-05-06T12:39:41","modified_gmt":"2018-05-06T18:39:41","slug":"aye-my-hearties-the-six-of-coins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9473","title":{"rendered":"Aye, My Hearties, the Six of Coins!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pickering Wharf today. At left is the reconstructed Salem privateer schooner Fame. The original Fame\u00a0 operated during the War of 1812 against British shipping, while the newer version offers summer day cruises in Salem Sound.<\/p><\/div>\n

The history of Salem, Mass., is more about the sea than the witches<\/strong> \u2014 at least through the 18th and early 19th centuries, the peak of the Age of Sail.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kids climb an old anchor at the National Park Service’s Salem Maritime National Historic Site.<\/p><\/div>\n

In the beginning, all the coastal communities were fishing ports, but while some like Gloucester stayed that way, Salem went mercantile, first in the coastal and West Indies trade and then \u2014 for the big money \u2014 the Spice Trade. Pepper from Sumatra, cinnamon from India, tea from China, plus other Asian goods, were all in demand. Per capita, Salem was the richest town in Revolutionary War-era America, based on importing and re-shipping West Indian and East Asian goods.<\/p>\n

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A miniature portrait of Capt. Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1776\u20131808.<\/p><\/div>\n

There was risk, of course. For example, Capt. Nathaniel Hawthorne (the author’s father), a sea captain on the verge of big success, died of yellow fever<\/a> in South America at age 32.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Model of original Friendship. Note cannon on deck.<\/p><\/div>\n

The ships themselves were typically three-masted “East Indiamen” \u2014 like the Friendship of Salem<\/em>, a working reconstructed ship based on a 1797 original.<\/a> It is currently undergoing repairs, so I was not able to visit it last month.<\/p>\n

The ocean was not necessarily a friendly place.<\/strong> There were European pirates still,<\/a> plus privateers in wartime (pirates with a government license)<\/a>, and in the Far East there were local pirates as well.<\/a>((Salem ship captains also turned privateer in the 1850s against the French and during the Revolution and War of 1812 against British merchant ships.)) So the merchant ships carried cannon and other weapons for self-defense and the crews were trained in their use.<\/p>\n

But by the time that Nathaniel Hawthorne\u00a0the writer was working at the federal custom house in Salem<\/a> in the 1840s, the trade was falling off.((Consequently, he had plenty of time to plot “The Scarlet Letter.” But I wonder if the declining shipping trade in Salem contributed to Hawthorne’s nostalgic outlook.)) One reason was competition with Boston and New York.<\/p>\n

The other was environmental. Salem’s merchants built so many private wharves (Pickering Wharf, Turner Wharf, Derby Wharf, etc.) for their ships and goods that they affected water movement, leading to increased silting-up of the harbor. Consequently, the newer, larger clipper ships of the 1840s\u20131850s<\/a> could not easily use it.((Salem could still accept shipments of leather, coal, and other raw materials needed for its new era as a manufacturing town.))<\/p>\n

While I drank a beer at Jaho Coffee<\/a> on Derby Street,<\/strong> M. revisited the Spice Trade, making some purchases at Salem Spice on Wharf Street<\/a>. Somewhere, the old sea captains nodded in approval.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Wharf Street: nautical New England with psychic readings.<\/p><\/div>\n

But today’s Pickering Wharf neighborhood looks more like Diagon Alley<\/a>. Yes, there is a fishing-tackle shop and nautical-theme gifts on sale, but there are also multiple occult shops. (Gypsy Ravish’s Nu Aeon<\/a> is the only that I have visited.)<\/p>\n

It turns into another time-slip:<\/strong> After spending the morning ashore, the second mate of the privateer <\/em>Annabelle returns to the ship.<\/em><\/p>\n

Summoning the sailors on deck, he sits on a hatch cover.<\/p>\n

“Feast your eyes on my new Tarot deck,” he says. “Let’s have a quick reading for the voyage ahead!<\/p>\n

“Ah now, look at that!” he exclaims, tapping a card with tar-stained fingernail. “Aye, my hearties, the Six of Coins! We’ll be coming back rich men!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The history of Salem, Mass., is more about the sea than the witches \u2014 at least through the 18th and early 19th centuries, the peak of the Age of Sail. In the beginning, all the coastal communities were fishing ports, but while some like Gloucester stayed that way, Salem went mercantile, first in the coastal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[100,103,325,331,159,29],"class_list":["post-9473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-history","tag-massachusetts","tag-salem","tag-ships","tag-tarot","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2sN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9456,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9456","url_meta":{"origin":9473,"position":0},"title":"Witchy Cultural Tourists Do Exist","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"In J. W. Ocker\u2019s book A Season with the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts, Jay Finney, chief marketing officer of the big Peabody Essex Museum, tells Ocker that \u201ccultural tourists\u201d who visit the museum are a different crowd than those who come to Salem for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11842,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11842","url_meta":{"origin":9473,"position":1},"title":"Salem Museum Gives In, Exhibits 1692 Witch-Trial Materials","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 26, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2017, Donna Seger, a history professor at Salem State University (Massachusetts) wrote an open letter to the leadership of the Peabody Essex Museum, a big, rich institution in downtown Salem that along with being a major art museum, controls (and usually hides) the town's historical archives. Her letter stated,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Massachusetts\"","block_context":{"text":"Massachusetts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=massachusetts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/sewall-256x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9327,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9327","url_meta":{"origin":9473,"position":2},"title":"The Best New Book about the Salem Witch Trials","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Wouldn't you like to live in an enchanted world, where everything in nature brought messages from gods and spirits? The New England Puritans did so, but with a smaller cast of characters: their God and their Devil. But there were lots of messages all the same: If your cow died,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/the-witches.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9439,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9439","url_meta":{"origin":9473,"position":3},"title":"Salem, Arkham, and H. P. Lovecraft","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"What Bourbon Street is to New Orleans' French Quarter, Essex Street is to Salem, Mass. When it's party time (October), this is where the party happens. Otherwise, it is the chief tourist-commercial street, whether you want the Peabody Essex Museum, Christian Day's witch shop,\u00a0or The Witch House, which was actually\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Massachusetts\"","block_context":{"text":"Massachusetts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=massachusetts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/essex-st-west-vertical.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9733,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9733","url_meta":{"origin":9473,"position":4},"title":"Salem\u2014It’s an International Brand","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"On August 3, 2018 Jason Mankey posted his list of the \"25 Most Influential Living Pagans\" on his blog\u2014a good list, but slanted toward the English-speaking world (the \"Anglosphere\"). On August 10, Jaime Gir\u00f3nes responded at The Wild Hunt with \"The 15 Most Influential Pagans in M\u00e9xico.\" I read it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"coffee\"","block_context":{"text":"coffee","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=coffee"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/casasalem.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9540,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9540","url_meta":{"origin":9473,"position":5},"title":"Salem Still Follows Us","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 23, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"My April 25th post said, \"The Southwest Follows Us to Salem & Salem Follows Us Home.\" That has not stopped. Yesterday I stepped into the Goodwill store in Pueblo, Colorado to buy some of their 99\u00a2 wineglasses for daily use. (Wineglasses break.) This shot glass caught my eye instead. Trade\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Massachusetts\"","block_context":{"text":"Massachusetts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=massachusetts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/salem-shot-glass.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9473"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9503,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9473\/revisions\/9503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}