100. The plotters of the Gaspée incident (see note 62, above) reportedly met in 1772 at Sabin’s Tavern, where reportedly a written account of the affair later hung for many years on a wall, “engrossed by the hand of” the daughter of Colonel Ephraim Bowen, “the last survivor of the party” (Edward Field, Manual of the Rhode Island Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, 288).
101. See note 85, above.
102. Manning (1738–1791) was the first president of Brown University; however, at this time, he was the president of Rhode Island College. He had earlier opened a Latin school in Warren, Rhode Island, and in 1770 moved the college into which the school had grown to Providence. While the president’s house was being built, he lived with Benjamin Bowen.
103. Jabez Bowen (1739–1815) served as the deputy governor of Rhode Island and the chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. However, “old Dr. Jabez” probably refers to his great-uncle Jabez Bowen (1696–1770), who was a Providence physician. Dr. Jabez Bowen was the father of Benjamin Bowen (see note 102, above).
104. Whipple (1733–1819) was later an American naval officer in the Revolutionary War and commanded one of the ships involved in the Gaspée incident (see note 62, above).
105. Wanton (1705–1780), governor from 1769 to 1775, remained neutral during the Revolution, although he was important in thwarting the Crown, which was endeavoring to discover who had been involved in the Gaspée incident (see note 62, above).
106. According to Henry R. Chace’s Owners and Occupants of the Lots, Houses, and Shops in the Town of Providence Rhode Island in 1798, “At right angles to the Town Street and across the Great Bridge, was Weybosset Point. It had been called that since 1638, and had been used for a hundred years as a landing-place for cattle when fording the river in going to and from the village to the farms west and south in the country” (i).
107. Kimball (292–294) recounts that the Turk’s Head was a local landmark, originally the figurehead of the ship Sultan. It served Jacob Whitman for many years as a signpost for his blacksmith’s shop in the southern part of Providence, near the Tillinghast neighborhood, until it was swept away in a gale in 1815.
108. Daniel Abbott was the son of Daniel Abbott, “who played so prominent a part as town-clerk in the years immediately following King Philip’s War,” according to Kimball, and owned a distillery by the Parade, just in front of the Great Bridge.
109. Ann Hibbins, convicted of witchcraft in 1656 in a precursor to the mass witchcraft trials in 1692, named as one of her executors Lieutenant Edward Hutchinson, described by Charles W. Upham, in his 1867 Salem Witchcraft, as one of a group of “leading citizens.” (284) In a letter dated 1928, Hutchinson states that he has had 150 more years than Curwen to study occult matters, so it may well be that Hutchinson had lived in Salem for many years prior to this period of Curwen’s life. However, one Joseph Hutchinson Sr., a mill operator, was a complainant in the Salem Witch Trials, and there were several other Hutchinson households in Salem by 1692.
110. Zariatnatmik is one of the names of God, according to the Grand Grimoire (a work that claims to be written in 1522 but probably dates from after the eighteenth century), and Ben Zariatnatmik means “Son of God.”
111. A deity worshipped in northern Britain, identified with the Roman gods Mars, the god of war, and Sylvanus, the god of the forest.
112. A language of Ethiopia, the second-most-spoken Semitic language worldwide after Arabic.
113. Presumably William Shippen Sr. (1712–1801), a Philadelphia physician who represented Pennsylvania at the Continental Congress. His son William Shippen Jr. (1736–1808) was also a prominent physician; he served as surgeon general to the Continental Army and in 1765 founded the first maternity hospital in America, a lying-in ward and school for midwives in Philadelphia.
114. Brown (1736–1803) was another of the Brown brothers, successful in farming and shipping. He was one of the organizers of the Gaspée incident (see note 62, above). Brown was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1798. He was also a slave trader and was the first person prosecuted under the federal slave importation laws in 1796.
115. A detail verified by Kimball, as were many other anecdotes in the story.
116. Esek Hopkins (1718–1802), a merchant and privateer captain, served as commander in chief of the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War.
117. Also called Wega (“falling” in Arabic), Alpha Lyrae is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra (shaped like a lyre, according to the Greeks, or a falling vulture, per the Arabs). It is the second-brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere and was the polestar 12,000 years ago (and will be again in another 12,000 years).
118. Eliphas Levi’s writings, collected in The Mysteries of Magic, instruct:
The formulae of evocation found in the magical elements of Peter d’Apono or in the Grimoires, whether printed or in manuscript, may then be recited. Those in the Great Grimoire, repeated in the common Red Dragon, have been wilfully altered in printing, and should read as follows:—
Per Adonai Elohim, Adonai Jehova, Adonai Sabaoth, Metraton On Agla Adonai Mathon, verbum pythonicum, mysterium salamandrae, conventus sylvorum, antra gnomorum, daemonia Coeli Gad, Almousin, Gibor, Jehosua, Evam, Zariatnatmik, veni, veni, veni.
The great invocation of Agrippa consists only in these words:—“DIES MIES JESCHET BOENEDOESEF DOUVEMA ENITEMAUS.” We do not pretend to understand what they mean, they have possibly no meaning, and can certainly have none which is rational, since they are of efficacy in conjuring up the devil, who is supreme senselessness. Doubtless in the same opinion, Mirandola affirms that the most barbarous and absolutely unintelligible words are the best and most powerful in black magic. Ridiculous practices and imbecile evocations induce hallucination better than rites which are calculated to keep the understanding vigilant. Dupotet [Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy, a leading 19th-century mesmerist] affirms that he has tried the power of certain signs over ecstatics, and those in his “Magic Unveiled” are analogous if not absolutely identical with the diabolical signatures found in old editions of the “Great Grimoire.” The same causes will always produce the same effects, and there is nothing new under the moon of the sorcerers any more than beneath the sun of the sages.
The conjurations should be repeated in a raised tone, accompanied by imprecations and menaces till the spirit responds. The spirit is usually preceded by a violent wind which seems to howl through the whole country. Domestic animals tremble at it, and seek a hiding place; the assistants feel a breath upon their faces, and their hair, damp with cold sweat, stands up on their heads (162).
Waite translated Lévi’s invocation in another work, The Ritual of Transcendental Magic (1892), as “By Adonai Eloim, Adonai Jehova, Adonai Sabaoth, Metraton on Agla Mathon, the Pythonic word, the Mystery of the Salamander, the Assembly of Sylphs, the Grotto of Gnomes, the demons of the heaven of Gad, Almousin, Gibor, Jehosua, Evan, Zariatnatmik: Come, come, come!”
Lévi was the pseudonym of the French occultist Alphonse-Louis Constant (1810–1875), author of numerous works on spiritualism and magic.
119. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) was an Italian scholar and philosopher, who, among many other interests, wrote on the topic of magic. However, the incantation set down here is properly attributed to Cornelius Agrippa (see note 52, above), who recorded it after Mirandola’s death in his book on ritual magic, De Occulta Philosophia Libri III (Three Books of Occult Philosophy), written in 1509 or 1510 and published in 1533.
120. Wilde was convicted in 1895 of gross indecency and incarcerated in Pentonville Prison and then Wandsworth Prison, where he carried out his sentence of hard labor. He was released from prison in 1897; he died in exile, in Paris, three years later. Although memoirs of Wilde appeared shortly after his death, the first biography, written by his friend Frank Harris, did not appear until 1916. Wilde’s reflections on his life, written in prison, were partially published under the title De Profundis in 1905, a
decade after the criminal trial ended.
121. Lord Dunsany’s tale, “The King That Was Not,” was first published in 1905 in his collection Time and the Gods. Lovecraft had many collections of Dunsany’s work in his library, and at least one of them included it. In the story, the king made images of the gods with faces of men (indeed, his own face). This so displeased the gods that they caused him to be erased: “passing suddenly out of . . . remembrance . . . [he] became no longer a thing that was or had ever been,” his robe puddled on the floor near his throne and his crown beside it.
122. A historic museum, now part of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem.
The Essex Institute (now part of the Peabody Essex Museum), in 2013. Photograph copyright © Donovan K. Loucks 2010, reprinted with permission
123. That is, per the Gregorian calendar; the Julian calendar was not implemented in the English colonies until 1752. There were ten “missing days” in the switchover, so that the eighteenth of February would be February 28 under the Julian calendar.
124. See note 109, above, for a possible identification of this individual. Curwen’s construction of a fraternity of like-minded alchemical scholars is paralleled by the efforts of John Winthrop, Jr. (later governor of colonial Massachusetts) to found a colony of alchemists in New London, Connecticut, in the mid seventeenth century. See Walter W. Woodward’s Prospero in America: John Winthrop, Jr., Alchemy, and the Creation of New England Culture (1606–1676).
125. Records reflect that one John Orne bought property in Salem in 1652; this is undoubtedly a family member.
126. A fictitious name.
127. “Oyer and Terminer” means “to hear and determine.” This was a special court created for the express purpose of the witchcraft trials.
128. John Hathorne was an executor (like a magistrate) in the Salem Witch Trials and displayed no compassion for the accused.
129. The “black man” is mentioned by many of the witnesses in the trials as whispering in the ear of that victim or another and appears to be either Satan or a lesser devil.
130. Her name does not appear in Upham’s expansive history of the trials or the transcript of the witchcraft trials papers.
131. Bartholomew Gedney served on the panel of judges along with Hathorne.
132. Burroughs was reportedly a man without guile and incapable of appreciating the wickedness of the witnesses. According to Upham, “He tried, in simplicity and ingenuousness, to explain what was brought against him; and this, probably, was all the ‘twisting and turning’ he exhibited.” On April 30, 1692, two complainants, Jonathan Walcott and Thomas Putnam, swore before Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin that “high Suspition of Sundry acts of Witchcraft [having been] done or Committed by [Burroughs] Upon the Bodys of Mary Walcot Marcy Lewis Abigail Williams Ann putnam and Eliz Hubert and Susanah Sheldon (Viz) Upon Som: or all of them, of Salem Village or farm[es] whereby great hurt and dammage benne donn[e] to the Bodys of s’d persons above named therefore [the complainants] Craved Justice.” Many gave testimony against Burroughs, but no Amity How was among the witnesses. Burroughs was executed on August 19, 1692.
133. The Photostat machine was a device invented around 1907 for photographic copying of documents (its principal competitor was the Rectigraph). The machines were very popular, and “photostat” became the generic name for the photographic copy. The devices were supplanted by copying machines that used electrophotography (called xerography) in the 1940s, the technique still used today in common photocopiers.
An advertisement for the “Photostat” device by the Commercial Camera Company, July 1920.
134. Handwriting.
135. See “The Festival,” note 37, above. S. T. Joshi, in The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos, argues that references to Yog-Sothoth and later references to the Necronomicon by Curwen and his associates suggest that they “were involved in more cosmic activity than merely the resurrection of dead human bodies” (59).
136. A volume of unknown provenance.
137. The “key.” In arcane texts, usually the Greater or Lesser Key of Solomon.
138. Holy Rood Day, or Roodmas, is May 3, the Feast of the Cross, and is often identified with May Day or Walpurgis; these fall exactly six months before All Hallows’ Day (and Walpurgisnacht, associated with sorcerers and witches, is the eve of Walpurgis, just as Halloween or All Hallows’ Eve is the night before All Hallows’ Day).
139. Dr. Samuel Carew owned property in Providence in 1798, according to the official records.
140. According to Welcome Greene’s The Providence Plantations, “The old Sayles place lay near by [in Pawtucket], where in later days Jeremiah Sayles kept a tavern” (377).
141. Epenetus Olney was the son of Epenetus and Mary (Whipple) Olney, born January 18, 1675, at Providence; he died there on September 17, 1740. According to the American Historical Society, he owned a large tract of land, which comprised a part of the sites of the present Glocester and Burrillville, and was a well-known man in the community. He married Mary Williams, granddaughter of Roger Williams, and they were the parents of the following children: James, Charles, Joseph, Anthony, Mary, Amey, Anna, Martha, and Freeborn. He may have owned a tavern that bore his name, but he was likely deceased by the time of this letter.
142. The Boston Stone, imported from England and once said to have been used as a millstone to grind pigments for paint, was embedded in 1737 in the wall of the building on Marshall Street that sits across from the Ebenezer Hancock House in Boston (built by John Hancock). Some believe that the stone was used for many years by surveyors to measure distances. It never had any official status as a milestone, and eventually the prominent Boston central point became the dome of the new State House.
143. Incorrectly “Almonsin” in early Arkham editions. Almousin or Almouzin is another name for God, drawn from the Grand Grimoire, described in note 110, above. In the cosmogony of the Grand Grimoire, Metratron (or Metatron or Metaraon) is the chief of the ten archangels, called the king of angels. He has been identified with various biblical angels, such as the angel who wrestled with Jacob (Genesis 32) or the watchman (“Watchman, what of the night?”) in Isaiah 21, or the angel sent to guide the Israelites in Exodus 23:20.
144. Molding that projects in front of the face of the framing panel to cover a joint.
145. Silas Talbot (1751–1813) was commander of the USS Constitution and later a congressman from the state of New York; and there are some papers referring to one “Nightingale” as well as “Curwen” among the family correspondence collected in the G. W. Blunt White Library at the Mystic Seaport Museum, about ten miles east of New London, Connecticut. These may well be the letters Ward consulted, although there is no evident connection between Talbot and Providence.
146. There is no record of Mr. Dwight.
147. A popular colonial style, after the Earl of Albemarle.
Portrait of Arnold Joost van Keppel, 1st Earl of Albemarle (1669–1718), by Sir Godfrey Kneller (ca. 1700).
148. In the town of West Warwick. There were two mills there, the Valley Queen and the Royal; both subsequently were destroyed in fires and not rebuilt.
149. Alfred L. Crooker & Co., a manufacturer of wood mantels, is listed in the Providence Directory for 1889.
Advertisement for A. L. Crooker & Co., appearing in the 1889 Providence Directory (Providence: Sampson, Murdock & Co.).
150. “Armiger” is an honorific, like “Esquire”; it means someone entitled to bear arms.
151. Subsequently moved to Newton and now closed, the library consisted of a collection of books on the Bible and the history of the Christian church. A catalogue of its collection was published in 1924.
152. The gravestone of Howard Phillips Lovecraft is located in this cemetery.
153. “He died.”
154. Kimball notes that the shop known as the “Sign of the Boy and Book,” of which Knight Dexter was the proprietor, sold a well-selected assortment of dry goods “whose very names have become obsolete. Th
ere were ‘Shalloons, Tammies, Sagathees, Thicksetts, Taffaties and Persians; Allopeens, Callimancoes, red and blue Duffils, [and] black and blue Everlastings’” (325).
155. Camblet and cambleteen are materials, wool and silk woven with hair (usually goat hair). Shalloon is also a fabric, as are calamanco, shendsoy, and humhums (sometimes called hammam or hamoene), the last a cotton cloth woven in Bengal and often used to make towels.
156. According to Kimball, Robert Perrigo, “Cordwainer” [cobbler], operated at the Sign of the Boot. Awls would of course be an appropriate purchase for Perrigo (320).
157. “Sabaoth” means literally “an army” or “host”; God is frequently referred to in various texts as the “Lord of Hosts,” “Adonai Sabaoth.”
158. This is the first mention of Curwen’s friend Mr. H. in Transylvania, and it is remarkable that it occurs as early as 1754. One wonders how they came in contact with each other, for Transylvania was virtually unvisited by persons from western Europe. The earliest English-language account of Transylvania’s history and peoples was William Wilkinson’s An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (1820), and the connection between Transylvania and matters supernatural did not appear in literature until a tale by Alexandre Dumas père was published in 1849. The Dumas story is called, variously, “La Dame Pâle” (“The Pale Lady”) and “Mounts Krapach” (“The Carpathian Mountains”) and was issued in his collection Les Mille et un Fantômes.
159. Sir Henry Raeburn (1756–1823), a renowned portraitist. Of course, Alexander painted before Raeburn.
160. Although Ward would have been a member of the Class of 1920, Henry L. P. Beckwith Jr., in Lovecraft’s Providence & Adjacent Parts, assures us that “school records appear to be incomplete on this point . . .” (70).
161. Presumably one of those discovered by Inspector Legrasse, as recounted in “The Call of Cthulhu” (here, above).
The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft Page 50