Salem Lady: A Fictional/Historical Account of the Settling of Salem in 1626 [SIGNED FIRST EDITION]

Putnam, Harold

Verlag: Penobscot Press, 2001

Beschreibung

As new condition illustrated softcover wraps. Includes Author Dedication; Preface; Sequels in Progress; Acknowledgments; and About the Author. Illustrated with black-and-white drawings. Signed, inscribed and dated (2/20/03) by the author with black ink on the full title page. "On or about March of 1627 a girl baby was born near the Indian village of Naumkeag on the north shore of Massachusetts Bay. The names of her parents are unknown. The exact date of her birth is not recorded. No writing bearing her name remains, except one deed and one will. Yet a girl named Mary was a very real person in the early years of Salem Plantation. As she grew to womanhood, she left an important impact upon her century - yet only a few genealogists and a few historians will recognize her name. To begin her lifelong story I have created her father and mother - the Reverend Peter Shepherd and Rebecca Howe, mythical first settlers of Salem. I follow them through the first years of the colony.Nathaniel was one of the first Colonial shipmasters to reach the Caribbean, and the first to import sugar, rum and molasses, the foundations of a fortune that Mary inherited. Thomas is the second generation of my family in New England (I am the 12th!) and was the largest taxpayer in Salem Village (which is now Danvers). The baby Mary, born at the end of this story, survives to birth Joseph Putnam, who was chosen at the age of 22 by a 1692 Salem Town Meeting to end the witchcraft hysteria. She was the grandmother of General Israel Putnam, second in command to George Washington in the American Revolution. Today, when I walk through the low-ceilinged 1648 Putnam homestead in Danvers, Massachusetts, (on Route One at Maple Street) I hear Mary's voice saying: "Tel my story. Tell my story." The house remained in our Putnam/Emerson family for 343 years, believed to be the longest continuous family ownership in America. It is now the property of the Danvers Historical Society. When I stand outside the house and look at what was once a verdant mile in all directions, I know that all this was once Mary's land. She held it for Joseph, her son by Thomas, in a fierce lawsuit that upset the centuries-old English custom of primogeniture that left estates mostly to the oldest son - the first major lawsuit ever won by a woman in the Massachusetts colonies. I keep hearing her insistent voice: "Tell my story. Tell my story." This is the beginning of Mary's story." - from the Preface. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Harold Putnam was a LIeeutenant j.g. in the Navy during World War II, serving as an Armed Guard Officer in charge of a Navy gun crew on a Liberty ship. He served in all theatres of the war. His final voyage was carrying a load of ammunition from Marseilles, France, through the Panama Canal to Okinawa and Japan. In 1942 he was offered a commission in the new Office of Strategic Services by the White House, but turned it down because he had to enroll without any explanation to his family or to his newspaper column readers. Although having two children at the time, he volunteered for a Navy commission, agreeing with Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who said in Civil War times that "any citizen/leader shoudl share the felt dangers of his time." Harold Putnam was a native of Boston. He graduated from Boston Latin School, Dartmouth College and Boston University Law School. He studied American History in a Ph.D. program at Brandeis University. He is a direct descendant of Will Sargent, one of the original settlers of Ipswich (1633) and Amesbury, Massachusetts, and of Joun Putnam, a first settler of the northwest corner of Salem in 1640. He was the 59th descendant of John to serve in the Great and General Court of Massachusetts (the State Legislature). He served nine years as Moderator of the town of Needham, Massachusetts. After graduation as an English major, he began his writing career as a reporter and columnist for The Boston Globe. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 005044

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Salem Lady: A Fictional/Historical Account ...

Verlag: Penobscot Press

Erscheinungsdatum: 2001

Einband: Soft cover

Illustrator: Putnam, Marlene Evans

Zustand: As New

Signiert: Signed by Author(s)

Auflage: 1st Edition