A tribute to the Essex Institute—and Mary English’s chair
There’s a certain charm in old travel books. I read them to learn about houses and objects that have disappeared or have since been hidden from view. Take, for example, The Book of Boston by Robert Shackleton (1860-1923).
One hundred years ago, the author ventured to “the famous old Seaport of Salem.” He found much of interest, from the mansions on Chestnut Street to the “staid old homes” built around Washington Square.
“Yet, if all these old houses, with their wealth of belongings, should be destroyed, the Salem of the past would still be represented if it should still retain the treasures of its Essex Institute. The building that holds these treasures is a three-story structure of generous portions, standing near the center of the city, on Essex Street. …The Essex Institute holds, in itself, Old Salem. Enter the door…and instantly you are generations away from the present, for there is nothing that does not tell of the past, and the past is shown with infinite picturesqueness and particularity. There is a great central portion, and there are little alcove rooms full-furnished as rooms of the olden time, all in ship-shape order….
“Here in Essex Institute is the furniture of our forefathers, tables and sideboards and chairs, and among them is a black, heavy three-slat chair with high-turned posts which was the favorite chair of that beloved Mary English, who, with her husband, the richest shipowner of Salem, had to flee from Massachusetts for very life under the shadow of witchcraft accusation; and this excellent old chair seems to stand as a reminder that neither wealth nor high character nor charm of manner nor social position can be relied upon to check a popular delusion.”
Provenance of Mary English’s Chair
In the 1908 Annual Report of the Essex Institute, we learn that Miss Mary R. Crowninshield of Madrid, Spain, donated the “wooden-seated armchair that formerly belonged to Mary English.” The report also mentions its provenance and how it came to have a certain inscription—details critically important to museum pieces.
“This chair is unlike any other chair in the museum and is of greatest interest because of its association with an important character at the time of the witchcraft delusion in Salem. Miss Crowninshield is a great-granddaughter of Mrs. Hannah Crowninshield with whom Rev. William Bentley lived for many years and in his diary is recorded the following:
“June 3, 1793: Ordered the chair received from the family of English in memory of 1692 to be painted green, and on the back 1692, upper slat; middle slat, M. English; lower slat, Apr. 22, the time of her mittimus; on the front upper slat, “It shall be told of her.”
“This inscription placed upon the ancient chair over a century ago at the direction of Doctor Bentley yet remains and in our safe and careful custody will exist for generations, a memorial to a noble woman who suffered unjustly during a time of great mental delusion.”
The donation was so notable that scores of newspapers across the country picked up the story. For instance, the Boston Daily Globe (10 Jan. 1909) wrote of the “Relic of Witchcraft Days” and described Mary English’s arrest, imprisonment, and escape. The wording is the same from The Republic (Columbus, Ohio) and the Wichita Searchlight (Kansas) to the Times Herald (Olean, New York), though some articles include more or less detail, depending how many inches of copy they had to place. The last line is particularly poignant:
“The chair in the Institute is one of the few memorials to them, or to witchcraft victims, in Salem.”
Let’s hope, as the Peabody Essex Museum expands, it once again will display the witch-hunt documents and related objects, including Mary English’s chair, to “invite visitors to discover the inextricable connections” between “the past and the present” (as stated on PEM’s website).