The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (72 page)

44
The
Turba Philosophorum
(“Assembly of Philosophers”) is an alchemical work by Guglielmo Grataroli (1516-1568), first published in 1613. It was translated into English by A. E. Waite in 1914.

45
Geber (fl. fourteenth century) is the otherwise unknown author of several alchemical works influential in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There is no such work among his four surviving books called
Liber Investigationis
; HPL probably refers to
De Investigationis Perfecti Magisterii
(“On the Investigation of the Perfect Magistery”), one of the books contained in
De Alchimia Libri Tres
(1531).

46
Artephius (d. 1119?) is the reputed author of an alchemical work called
Clavis Majoris Sapientiae
(“The Key of Greater Wisdom”), published in 1609.

47
The
Zohar
(c. 1285) is a collection of Jewish occult literature embodying the principles of kabbalism. The Kabbala is a mystical belief system emerging in the twelfth century and emphasizing the possibility of an individual's reunification with God.

48
Albertus Magnus (1200?-1280), Dominican bishop and teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas, pioneered the study of the natural sciences and also dabbled in alchemy, thereby gaining a posthumous reputation among occultists. Petrus Jammy prepared the first edition of his collected works (
Opera
, 1651 [21 volumes]).

49
Ramon Llull (1232/33-1315/16; anglicized as Raymond Lully) was a Catalan mystic and Neoplatonist. His
Ars magna
(written 1305-8), first published in 1501, is actually a work of Christian apologetics. Lazarus Zetzner published it as part of Llull's
Opera
(1598).

50
Roger Bacon (1220?-1292?), British philosopher, scientist, and Franciscan friar, was one of the great minds of the Middle Ages and a proponent of experimental science. The major work on alchemy attributed to Bacon (although probably not by him) is generally known as
Speculum Alchemiae
(1541), translated into English as
The Mirror of Alchimy
(1593). The existence of a
Thesaurus Chemicus
has not been verified.

51
Robert Fludd (1574-1637) was a British physician, mystic, and occultist. The
Clavis Philosophiae et Alchymiae
(“Key to Philosophy and Alchemy”) was first published in 1633.

52
Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516) was a German alchemist and magician and author of
De Lapide Philosophorum
(“On the Philosophers' Stone”), first published in 1619.

53
An actual volume: Jaffur Shureef [i.e., Ja'far Sharif],
Qanoon-e-Islam; or, The Customs of the Moosulmans of India
, trans. G. A. Herklots (London: Parbury, Allen & Co., 1832). The volume could obviously not have been in Curwen's possession in 1746. HPL appears to have found a reference to the volume in the article on “Magic” in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
. The article did not supply a date for Herklots's edition.

54
See n. 37 to “The Dunwich Horror.”

55
HPL here alludes to the so-called triangular trade, in which rum and other trade goods were sent from New England to Africa for slaves, who were taken to the West Indies in exchange for sugar, molasses, and other goods, which were then brought back to New England and manufactured into rum, whereupon the process began anew. Rhode Island shipping magnates were particularly adept at this business in the eighteenth century.

56
Three of the chief families in the shipping business in eighteenth-century Providence. “. . . there can be no doubt that somewhere Nathaniel Brown built vessels for Providence traders, and notably for the two Crawfords, Major William and Captain John. . . . Foremost in the ranks of those who exchanged the profession of farmer and land-trader for that of sailor and ship-owner, we find representatives of the Tillinghast, Power, and Brown families” (Kimball 228-29).

57
HPL cites four leading ports in the West Indies in the eighteenth century: Martinique (an island controlled by the French up to 1762, when it was captured by the British); St. Eustatius (an island controlled by the Dutch); Havana (the chief city of Cuba, at this time controlled by the Spanish); and Port Royal (a port on the south coast of Jamaica, controlled by the British).

58
The “Royal” (British) troops were on their way to New France (Canada) because of the Seven Years War (or French and Indian War) of 1756-63, in which the British and their colonies in America fought the French and their colonies.

59
All these shopkeepers are mentioned in Kimball: James Green (326), Joseph and William Russell (326), Clark and Nightingale (321).

60
The old Colony House burned down in 1758 and the new one overlooking North Main Street was built in 1761 (Kimball 211-12). It still stands.

61
George Whitefield (1714-1770) was a British religious leader who came to America in 1739 and initiated the “Great Awakening,” a revival of evangelical and emotional religious sentiment that swept the colonies in the 1740s. The incident related here by HPL is taken directly out of Kimball: Josiah Cotton had become pastor of the Congregational church in Providence in 1728; in 1742, Cotton's parish “was shaken to its foundations by this newly awakened zeal” from Whitefield, and in “the spring of 1743, the discontented faction formally withdrew from the church, and, in the language of the record, ‘they set up a separate meeting, where they attended to the exhortations of a lay brother' ” named Joseph Snow, Jr. (Kimball 193-96).

62
When HPL visited this area in southern Rhode Island in July 1933 he remarked: “This was the historic ‘South County' or ‘Narragansett Country' west of the bay, where before the Revolution there existed a system of large plantations & black slaves comparable to that of the South” (HPL to R. H. Barlow, July 13, 1933; ms., JHL).

63
Dutee Tillinghast and his daughter Eliza are imaginary, although of course the Tillinghast family is not (see n. 56).

64
Stephen Jackson ran the “town school house” on the Town Street from 1754 until at least 1763. HPL's wording here is taken almost verbatim from Welcome Arnold Greene,
The Providence Plantations for Two Hundred and Fifty Years
(Providence: J. A. & R. A. Reid, 1886), pp. 53-54. He had the book in his library.

65
The name Weeden is found sporadically in Providence history in the eighteenth century, as in Joseph Weeden, a first lieutenant during the battles with the French in the 1740s, and John Weeden, a butcher in 1786. HPL's original name for this character was Ezra Bowen.

66
Samuel Winsor, Sr., was pastor of the First Baptist Church from 1733 to 1758; his son, Samuel Winsor, Jr., was pastor from 1759 to 1771.

67
This is an adaptation of an actual marriage notice from the
Providence Gazette
of May 26, 1786, as quoted by Kimball (317-18): “Thursday last was married at Cranston . . . William Goddard, Esquire, of Balti more, Printer, to Miss Abigail Angell, eldest daughter of the late Brigadier-General Angell; a Lady of great Merit, her mental Acquirements, joined to a most amiable Disposition, being highly honourable to the Sex, and are pleasing Presages of connubial Felicity.”

68
Durfee and Arnold are both distinguished families of long standing in Providence. HPL does not appear to have had any specific individuals in mind when envisioning this imaginary correspondence.

69
King's Church is now St. John's Episcopal Church (see n. 20), originally founded by Gabriel Bernon in 1723. John Graves was pastor of King's Church from 1754 until at least 1782, although his loyalist sympathies prevented his officiating at the church from 1776 onward. He did not leave Rhode Island, dying in Providence in 1785.

70
HPL's chronology is a little suspect here. The little-known Scottish painter Cosmo Alexander (1724?-1772) came to America only in 1768. He spent much time in Newport, where he observed the pictorial talent of the teenage Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828). He tutored Stuart and took him to England in 1770, dying shortly thereafter.

71
Stephen Hopkins (1707-1785) was involved in Rhode Island politics since 1735. He was governor of Rhode Island in 1755-57, 1758-62, 1763-65, and 1767-68, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Joseph Brown (1733-1785) was a Rhode Island engineer and architect (he designed the First Baptist Meeting-House in 1775) and a member of the Brown family, noted for its prowess in shipping (see n. 56). Benjamin West (1730-1813) was an almanac maker and astronomer, and author of a pamphlet (later referred to by HPL—see p. 115),
An Account of the Observation of Venus upon the Sun the Third Day of June 1769
(1769). He is not to be confused with the painter Benjamin West (1738-1820).

72
Daniel Jenckes was the first bookseller in Providence, founding his bookshop in 1763.

73
Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward of Westerly engaged in a bitter personal and political feud for thirteen years following Hopkins's election as governor in 1755; the feud also represented a battle for economic and political supremacy between Providence (whose residents mainly supported Hopkins) and Newport (whose residents mainly supported Ward). In 1765, with Ward as governor, North Providence actually did briefly become a separate town, but two years later, when Hopkins was governor, the town's Assembly petitioned to be reunited with Providence (see Kimball 281-89). Hacker's Hall at 220 South Main Street was owned by Joshua Hacker and was a popular place of assembly from the 1760s onward. It was destroyed by fire in 1801, and the Joseph Peck house was erected on the spot in 1805.

74
There were several Sugar Acts in the eighteenth century, but HPL refers to the act of 1764, which sought to cut down on the smuggling of sugar into the colonies and resulted in a virtual monopoly of the American sugar market by British sugar planters. Violent protests by the colonists led to an eventual reduction of duties on foreign refined sugar.

75
Now Gaspee Point in Warwick, six miles south of Providence. It was where the
Gaspée
foundered prior to its burning in 1772 (see n. 104).

76
Edward (1330-1376), Prince of Wales and eldest son of Edward III, sacked the French city of Limoges in 1370 during the Hundred Years War.

77
This anecdote is taken directly from a notice in the
Providence Gazette
quoted by Kimball (310-11).

78
An actual incident that occurred on July 19, 1769.

79
Sir James Wallace (1731-1803), British admiral, was indeed commander of various military vessels in North America and the West Indies from 1762 onward, although there is no evidence that he was ever in charge of a customs fleet.

80
The sloop-of-war
Cygnet
had been lying in Newport harbor since at least 1764; it was commanded by Sir Charles Leslie. Rioting broke out in Newport as a result of the Stamp Act of 1764, and a plan was devised by colonial rebels to capture a sloop with a cargo of molasses, then under the control of the
Cygnet
; but the plan was later abandoned. It is not certain how much longer the
Cygnet
remained in Rhode Island waters.

81
A snow is a small sailing vessel resembling a brig. It was often used as a warship.

82
According to the recollections of Mrs. Grace Mauran, Manuel Arruda was a Portuguese door-to-door fruit salesman who sold his wares on College Hill at the time when HPL was living at 10 Barnes Street. See McNamara and Joshi, “Who Was the Real Charles Dexter Ward?” (cited in Further Reading).

83
Apparently mythical, although Kimball (191) mentions a Zacharias Mathewson living in Providence in 1722.

84
The Sabin Tavern was formerly located at the northeast corner of South Main and Planet Streets. It was built in 1763 and was occupied by James Sabin from 1765 to 1773. It was where the burning of the
Gaspée
(see n. 104) was planned. In 1891 it was torn down, but the room where the
Gaspée
meeting took place was joined to the house at 209 Williams Street.

85
The Rev. James Manning (1738-1791), Baptist clergyman, helped to found Rhode Island College (later Brown University) in 1764 and became its first president the following year, retaining the post until his death.

86
John Brown (1736-1803), shipping magnate, later supplied clothing and munitions to the Continental Army and then served as U.S. representative from Rhode Island (1799-1801). Nicholas Brown (1729-1791), eldest of the four Brown brothers, was chiefly a merchant, and is said to have been instrumental in persuading Rhode Island to adopt the U.S. Constitution (it was the last of the thirteen colonies to do so). Moses Brown (1738-1836), manufacturer, became a Quaker in 1774 and thereupon led the movement to abolish slavery in Rhode Island. He helped to found the Moses Brown School (see n. 8). For Joseph Brown see n. 25.

87
Dr. Jabez Bowen, whom the
Providence Gazette
described as “for a great Number of Years . . . eminent in the Practise of Physics and Surgery” (Kimball 344), died in August 1770, so he could not have been part of the anti-Curwen faction gathering in the autumn of 1770. HPL may have confused him with his son, Jabez Bowen, Jr. (d. 1815), who was an amateur astronomer; but this Jabez Bowen was not a doctor.

88
Abraham Whipple (1733-1819), privateersman and naval officer, led the party that burned the revenue ship
Gaspée
in 1772 (see n. 104). HPL was collaterally related to him through his great-great-grandmother, Esther Whipple (1767-1848). Kimball at one point describes Whipple as “pugnacious and outspoken” (259).

89
Joseph Wanton (1705-1780), born of a distinguished Newport family and governor of Rhode Island (1769-75).