Spider in a Tree Read online

  The day after Joseph argued the church case against Mr. Edwards, as he prayed amongst the hogsheads of cider and barrels full of wheat and barley on a warm afternoon in the attic, he heard a swarm of sluggish flies rise from the walls and sills. They filled the air with such buzzing that he left off praying to chase them into corners, slapping at their bodies with an ear of dry corn. For the rest of his life, Joseph prayed in that attic, and he fought the swarm often again.

  Acknowledgments

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for the use of the following materials:

  Quotes from Edwards’s MSS are courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

  Quotes from Edwards material including “Of the Rainbow”; “Of Being”; May 30, 1735 letter to the Reverend Benjamin Colman; and the c. 1738 draft letter on slavery, as well as materials related to documents from the Bad Book Case, courtesy of Franklin Trask Library, Andover Newton Theology School.

  September 11, 1749 letter from Jonathan Edwards to the Reverend Ebenezer Parkman from the Curwen Family Papers, American Antiquarian Society. Mss Boxes C, Box 3, Folder 2.

  Joseph Hawley papers. Manuscripts and Archives Division. The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

  Leah thinks of a tavern song inspired by Richard Brown’s “A Cat Catch” in Chapter One, and, in Chapter Two, sings two lines of Psalm 137 from Whole book of Psalms 1627, Thomas Ravenscroft. I heard both on www.1704.deerfield.history.museum, an outstanding resource on the raid on Deerfield and on the early eighteenth century cultures of the region. The alphabet verses that Elisha remembers in Chapter Three are from The New England Primer. In Chapter Eleven, the Yale scholars sing lines from “Alas! Did My Saviour Bleed?” by Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1707. Also in that chapter, the trustee decision read by the rector is from A Documentary History of Yale 1701-1745 (1916), by Franklin B. Dexter. Aristotle’s Master-Piece: or, the Secrets of Generation Displayed in all the Parts thereof, first referred to in Chapter Fifteen, first appeared in various versions in the late seventeenth century. I learned of it, and found the passages quoted and image described in the novel in “The Immaculate Ovum: Jonathan Edwards and the Construction of the Female Body,” Ava Chamberlain, William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 57, no. 2 (April 2000). Other important articles by Chamberlain: “Bad Books and Bad Boys: The Transformation of Gender in Eighteenth-Century Northampton, Massachusetts,” New England Quarterly 75 (June 2002) and “Jonathan Edwards and the Politics of Sex in Eighteenth-Century Northampton,” in Jonathan Edwards at 300: Essays on the Tercentenary of His Birth, edited by Harry S. Stout, Kenneth P. Minkema, and Caleb J. D. Maskell.

  I wish to acknowledge that I have infused the text with the words of Jonathan Edwards, his family, and contemporaries. Though it is based on these words and on the scholarship of many, Spider in a Tree is a work of fiction, and I have made frequent leaps of imagination. For instance, I couldn’t find records for the birth of Martha Root’s twins, so the nearness of the birth date to that of Jonathan and Sarah’s daughter Elizabeth is conjecture.

  I am indebted to Kenneth Minkema of the Works of Jonathan Edwards and of the Jonathan Edwards Center & Online Archive at Yale for his scholarship—especially for articles on Jonathan Edwards and slavery, and for his Edwards chronology—for critical readings of the whole of the novel, and for many acts of kindness during work on the novel. The Jonathan Edwards Center & Online Archive at Yale is a magnificent resource. It’s where anyone interested in knowing more about Edwards should start: edwards.yale.edu.

  I have used many of the books in the Works of Jonathan Edwards series published by Yale University Press and now available online at the Jonathan Edwards Center & Online Archive. The introductions make great reading, and they strongly influenced how I worked with the various subjects and periods. Two volumes I referred to over and over were The Great Awakening (WJE Online Vol. 4), Ed. C. C. Goen, and Letters and Personal Writings (WJE Online Vol. 16), Ed. George S. Claghorn. I also used Religious Affections (WJE Online Vol. 2), Ed. Paul Ramsey; Scientific and Philosophical Writings (WJE Online Vol. 6), Ed. Wallace E. Anderson; The Life of David Brainerd (WJE Online Vol. 7), Ed. Norman Pettit; Ethical Writings (WJE Online Vol. 8), Ed. Paul Ramsey; Sermons and Discourses 1720-1723 (WJE Online Vol. 10), Ed. Wilson H. Kimnach; Ecclesiastical Writings (WJE Online Vol. 12), Ed. David D. Hall (which particularly influenced my account of the communion controversy); The “Miscellanies”: (Entry Nos. a-z, aa-zz, 1-500) (WJE Online Vol. 13), Ed. Harry S. Stout; Sermons and Discourses: 1723-1729 (WJE Online Vol. 14), Ed. Kenneth P. Minkema; Sermons and Discourses, 1734-1738 (WJE Online Vol. 19), Ed. M. X. Lesser; Sermons and Discourses, 1739-1742 (WJE Online Vol. 22), Ed. Harry S. Stout; The “Blank Bible” (WJE Online Vol. 24), Ed. Stephen J. Stein; Sermons and Discourses, 1743-1758 (WJE Online Vol. 25), Ed. Wilson H. Kimnach; and referred to others. I also read and used work available only in the archive. I particularly love Typological Writings (WJE Online Vol. 11), Eds. Wallace E. Anderson, Mason I. Lowance, Jr. and David H. Watters, because it includes “Images of Divine Things.”

  Jonathan Edward: A Life by George M. Marsden is a fantastic biography, which has greatly influenced this book. Other fine biographies of Jonathan Edwards include, from the nineteenth century, The Works of Jonathan Edwards by his student Samuel Hopkins (who appears in this novel as a character), and “Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, A.M., ed, Sereno Edwards Dwight. Also extremely helpful, from the twentieth century: Jonathan Edwards, Pastor: Religion and Society in Eighteenth-Century Northampton by Patricia Tracy. Marriage to a Difficult Man: The Uncommon Union of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards by Elisabeth D. Dodds was interesting. Biographies by Ola E. Winslow and Perry Miller were enlightening.

  For an excellent introduction to the writing of Jonathan Edwards, see A Jonathan Edwards Reader, edited by John E. Smith, Harry S. Stout, and Kenneth P. Minkema. I also referred to Jonathan Edward: Selections, edited by Clarence Faust and Thomas H. Johnson.

  History of Northampton, Massachusetts, from its settlement in 1654, by James Russell Trumbull (1898), has been an invaluable source of information on many aspects of Northampton history. The letter Rebekah Hawley based her meal on in Chapter 17 was sent by Seth Pomeroy to his wife and quoted in Trumbull. Trumbull is also how I know that the Hawley family lived on Pudding Lane, which people in Northampton now know as Hawley Street. The Map of the Homelots of the First Settlers of Northampton compiled from the earliest town records is also by James R. Trumbull. The map of Northampton in the County of Hampshire, 1831, by John G. Hales, was also a great source of specifics about place. Thanks to Elise Bernier-Feeley and Special Collections at Forbes Library for access to these maps (and much else). Elise also led me to a source of information on colonial tanning yards: www.nps.gov/jame/historyculture/tanning-in-the-seventeenth-century.htm (no longer available at this writing). The route that Leah takes to have a private conversation with Bathsheba in Chapter Fifteen draws from directions Jonathan Edwards wrote in his account book about how to find the cranberry bog. On the other hand, while I’ve heard that Sarah Edwards and a Mr. Pomeroy had a conversation about the communion controversy during a trip, I haven’t read it, and my account here is fictional.

  A Place Called Paradise: Culture and Community in Northampton, MA, 1654-2004, Kerry Buckley, editor, has been helpful as well, especially “Into the Maelstrom of Change,” by Peter A. Thomas; and Margaret Bruchac, “Native Presence in Nonotuck and Northampton.” Also in this anthology is “Hard Thoughts and Jealousies” from John Putnam Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England, which includes the story the Hawley boys are told at the flogging about Goody Parsons and Betty Negro. Kerry Buckley is Executive Director of Historic Northampton, whose website pointed me to many resources, including an article by Stephen Stein, “‘For Their Spiritual Good’: The Northampton, Massachusetts
Prayer Bids of the 1730s and 1740s,” William and Mary Quarterly 3d ser.37(1980):261-285, where I first found the prayer bids quoted in the novel (except for the one from Leah and Saul, which is fictional). Northampton in the Days of Jonathan Edwards, 1727-50, by Clifford Lyman (1937) was of particular interest in the Historic Northampton Collection. In addition to the Hawley Papers at the New York Public Library, Joseph Hawley: Colonial Radical by Francis Brown, is a fine resource on Joseph Hawley (and his family), whose pre-revolutionary war activities are fascinating, if beyond the scope of this novel.

  Worlds of Wonder; Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England, by David D. Hall, was a great source for considerations of portents, signs, and popular religion. The work of Douglas Winiarski is another must for those who want to understand religion of the period as experienced by ordinary people. His article “Jonathan Edwards, Enthusiast? Radical Revivalism and the Great Awakening in the Connecticut Valley,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 74 (2005): 683-739, also greatly influenced my account of the preaching of “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God” in Enfield and the story of Samuel Hopkins in Suffield. How Early America Sounded, by Richard Cullen Rath, is astonishing.

  The best source for “The Narrative of Sarah Pierpont Edwards,” which much of Chapter 12 is based on, is Family Writings and Related Documents (WJE Online Vol. 41), Ed. Jonathan Edwards Center. An edited version was printed in Sereno Edwards Dwight. I was also inspired, especially to think of dance, by a chapter in Feminine Spirituality in America: From Sarah Edwards to Martha Graham, by Amanda Porterfield.

  There are many sources for information about the career of James Davenport. Some that I’ve found particularly valuable are CC Goen’s introduction to The Great Awakening (WJE Online Vol. 4); “James Davenport and the Great Awakening in New London,” Harry S. Stout and Peter Onuf, The Journal of American History, Vol 70, No. 3 (Dec 1983); and History of New London, CT, Frances Manwaring Caulkins (1852). The Diary of Joshua Hempstead of New London, CT, New London County Historical Society (1901), provides firsthand accounts of some of Davenport’s preaching. The Great Awakening: Documents on the Revival of Religion, 1740-1745, by Richard Bushman, includes a letter about the bonfire from the Boston Weekly Post-Boy, March 28, 1743, and Davenport’s Confession and Retractions (1744). Franklin Dexter’s Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College (1912) is also of interest.

  For information on Native Peoples, in addition to those already mentioned, I found these materials useful: The Mohicans of Stockbridge, Patrick Frazier; Native Peoples and Museums in the Connecticut River Valley: A Guide for Learning, edited by Dorothy Schlotthauer Krass and Barry O’Connell; “‘Poor Indians’ and the ‘Poor in Spirit’: The Indian Impact on David Brainerd,” Richard W. Pointer, in New England Encounters: Indians & Euroamericans, ca. 1600-1850, edited by Alden T. Vaughan. Land of the Nonotucks, C. Keith Wilber, Northampton Historical Society, and In Search of New England’s Native Past: Selected Essays by Gordon M. Day, eds Michael Foster and William Cowan. Also, “Lessons from Stockbridge: Jonathan Edwards and the Stockbridge Indians,” Rachel Wheeler, in Jonathan Edwards at 300.

  The portrait of slavery in Jonathan Edwards’s household in the novel draws extensively on Kennth Minkema’s scholarship, particularly his article “Jonathan Edwards’s Defense of Slavery,” The Massachusetts Historical Review 2002, which includes a brilliantly detailed account of Edwards’s purchase of his first slave, whose name was recorded on the receipt as “Venus.” The article includes as an appendix “Conversion of an African Woman.” This is “reportedly a description of the conversion of Jonathan Edwards’s former Slave, Rose Binney Salter, written by Dr. Stephen West, Edwards’s successor at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The account is reprinted verbatim from the Jan.-Feb. 1797 issue of The Theological Magazine, or Synopsis of Modern Religious Sentiment on a New Plan, pp. 191-195.” It strongly influenced my fictional account of Leah’s experience in the barn. George Marsden also writes about slavery and Jonathan Edwards. Marsden credits Kristin Kobes DuMez with the idea that Edwards may have changed Venus’s name to Leah, the name of the slave on record in his household during the Northampton revival. There is no historical basis for Jonathan Edwards using a catechism for Negroes (Pierson credits one to Cotton Mather), as I have him do in Chapter One.

  Other important sources for information on slavery and African Americans in colonial times: “African American Engagements with Edwards in the Era of the Slave Trade,” John Saillant, in Jonathan Edwards at 300: Essays on the Tercentenary of His Birth, edited by Harry S. Stout, Kenneth P. Minkema, and Caleb J. D. Maskell; African Americans in Newport: An Introduction to the Heritage of African Americans in Newport, Rhode Island, 1700–1945, Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission and Rhode Island Black Heritage Society; African Americans Voices of Triumph: Perseverance, foreword by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Editors of Time Life Books, Time-Life Books; Black Yankees: the development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England,William D. Piersen; Crossing the Danger Water: Three Hundred Years of African-American Writing, edited by Deidre Mullane; “The Edwardsean Tradition and the Antislavery Debate, 1740–1865,” Kenneth Minkema and Harry S. Stout, The Journal of American History Vol. 92, Issue 1; The Gullah, Rice, Slavery and the Sierra Leone-American connection, Joseph A. Opala. An online resource hosted by The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition www.yale.edu/glc/gullah/index.htm; History of the Black Population of Amherst, Massachusetts, 1728-1870, James Avery Smith.

  Also “‘Justise Must Take Plase’: Three African Americans Speak of Religion in Eighteenth-Century New England,” Erik R. Seeman. William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 56 (April 1999); The Negro in Colonial New England, 1620–1776, Lorenzo J. Greene; Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made, Eugene D Genovese; “The Selling of Joseph: Bostonians, Antislavery, and the Protestant International, 1689–1733,” Mark A. Peterson, The Massachusetts Historical Review 2002; “‘Shining in Borrowed Plumage’: Affirmation of Community in the Black Coronation Festivals of New England, ca. 1750-1850,” Melvin Wade, in Material Life in America 1600-1860, Robert Blair St. George, editor; Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts, Robert H. Romer; “Visible Bodies: Power, Subordination and Identity in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World,” Gwenda Morgan and Peter Rushton, Journal of Social History Fall 2005. I also drew on Jamaica Anansi Stories, by Martha Warren Beckwith (1924).

  The following books and articles provided many essential details about daily life, medicine, childbirth, child-rearing, cooking, clothing, and the roles of women in earlier times: The American Frugal Housewife: dedicated to those who are not ashamed of economy, Lydia Maria Child. 1828; “Children of Wrath, Children of Grace: Jonathan Edwards and the Puritan Culture of Child Rearing,” Catherine A. Brekus, The Child in Christian Thought, Marcia J. Bunge, editor; Everyday Life in the Strong House: A Resource Guide, Museum Education Project, School of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650–1750, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich; “Hannah and her Sisters: Sisterhood, Courtship, and Marriage in the Edwards Family in the Early Eighteenth Century,” Kenneth P. Minkema, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 146 (1992); A History of Costume in the West, New Enlarged Edition, Francois Boucher, translated from French by John Ross; In Small Things Forgotten: The Archeology of Early American Life, James Deetz; The Journal of Esther Edwards Burr 1754–57, Carol Karlsen and Laurie Crumpacker, eds; A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, especially the Appendix of Medicinal Ingredients; Our Own Snug Fireside: Images of the New England Home: 1760–1860. Jane C. Nylander; The Protestant Temperament: Patterns of Child-Rearing, Religious Experience, and the Self in Early America, Philip Greven; Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Colonial New Engl
and, Bruce C. Daniels.

  I’d also like to recommend The Black Veil, Rick Moody; Souls of the Labadie Tract, Susan Howe; River Gods, Brian Kiteley, and The Death of Adam, Marilynne Robinson.

  Many people have offered deep, gorgeous support for the writing of this book. If there are names I don’t mention, please know that I’ve suffered a lapse of memory, but not of gratitude. The scholars listed above have been central, whether they know it or not. All errors are, of course, my own. I’d like to thank everyone who read and/or critiqued the work-in-progress: Sally Bellerose; Elise Bernier-Feeley; Mary Cappello; Carolyn Cushing; Valija Evalds; Judith Frank; Lynne Gerber; James Heintz; Rebecca Johnson; Mark Jordan; Elaine Keach; Paul Lisicky; David McCormick; Kenneth Minkema; my siblings, Karen, Mike, and Don Stinson; and Douglas Winiarski.

  Thanks to Brian Kiteley; Elaine Crane; Kathryn Lofton, John Lardas Modern and Emily Floyd; and Jennifer Acker and John Hennessy for editing or inviting writing from me around the novel. Also, the staff of The Daily Hampshire Gazette. I’m grateful to Lambda Literary Journal, Lambda Literary Foundation, and Bob Flaherty for, among other things, creating opportunities for me to speak and write about this work as my full self.

  Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund provided financial support for the writing of the novel, for which I am grateful. Jeep Wheat took great photos and was good company. I’d also like to thank Peter Ives, Kathryn Gabriel, and First Churches for hosting events and sharing historical material. Marie Panik from Historic Northampton has been very helpful. I’ve also benefitted from the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife and the Jonathan Edwards in Europe conference in Budapest. The Jonathan Edwards Society has hosted conferences coordinated by Richard Hall in which I’ve participated. I thank, too, the Center for New Americans, where I tutored an impressive young man from Sierra Leone who gave me insight into being newly arrived in this country.