Family Stories: John Hoare and Jeremiah Vail

Foreword:  Family stories are part of the glue that holds generation to generation.  At a time when family values are under attacks both bold and subtle, the renewed emphasis on genealogy is a welcome development.  During the past four decades my wife, Paula and I have been doing research on our families. Because she can trace her ancestors back five centuries, incidents abound.  Here are stories of two men in her direct line worth retelling.  Future posts in this vein are anticipated.

The Heroism of John Hoare:  Hoare (sometimes written “Hoar”),  was a prominent and respected Colonial lawyer. In 1875 a conflict erupted with the Native American population called the King Philip’s War, a name obliquely referring to the Indian leader, Metacom, shown here.  Hoare achieved considerable fame in the Colonies and even in Europe because of his heroics and sagacity in negotiating the release of a white woman,  Mary Rowlandson, from Indian captivity.  She was carried off in a raid conducted by Chief Metacom himself and subsequently held prisoner in an Indian camp close to present day Princeton, Mass.

Hoare’s mission required him to ride into the hostile Indian camp unarmed and to haggle with the warriors over Mrs. Rowlandson’s release.   The inhabitants were anything but welcoming.  In her written account of the incident published at the time to great attention in both in America and England, the Rowlandson woman praised Hoare for his “forward spirit.”  She described that she initially thought he had been killed in trying to rescue her.  In reality, the Indians had simply shot over and under his horse, “pushing him this way and that way, at their pleasure, showing what they could do.”  Their intimidation apparently had little effect on Hoare’s resolve to free the captive housewife.  Eventually the Indians tired of their sport and  were willing to sit down with him to discuss her release.

At one point, upon a promise she could go,  Hoare supplied liquor to the Indian “master” to whom the white woman had been given.  It apparently was a mistake.  After a bout of drinking, this same warrior came ranting into the wigwam calling for Hoare, alternately toasting to him as a good man but in the next breath shouting,  “Hang him rogue.”  For Hoare this must have been a highly tense time.  After two more days of negotiations, on May 2, 1676,  the Yankee lawyer struck a bargain with the Indians and was allowed to leave with Mary and his own Christian Indian companions.   After further privations the little band found their way to Lancaster, Mass., and safety. 

The story of Hoare’s bravery became well known when Mary Rowlandson published her account of her days in captivity.   The story continued to be read for generations.   One author said of her book: that it was “long known to every New England family and perhaps secretly read by many a boy in lieu of the present Wild West series....”

Hoare had came to Scituata, Mass., from England about 1643.  He subsequently moved to Concord,  Mass., where he set up in the practice of law.   Although a member of the Puritan Congregationalist Church, Hoare apparently was not a rigid believer.  According to one report he was barred by authorities from practicing law for a year for failure to attend church and for making disparaging remarks about a local minister.   Hoare also had a reputation for being friendly with Indians,  an attribute that might have helped him rescue Mrs. Rowlandson.  He built a house for Christian Indians of the Nashobah tribe on his own land,  only to have a dozen of his charges kidnapped by local toughs and taken away.   John Hoare clearly is a worthy subject for further historical research.

The Trials of Jeremiah Vail:  Vail’s  birth date and arrival in the New World are not recorded.  We know he was living in Salem, Mass., in 1639 and was a blacksmith there.  At the time Salem had become the largest community in America occupied by people speaking English.  At that date there were only about a dozen scattered groups of white settlers on the whole Atlantic coast and Salem boasted some 1,000 inhabitants.

Vail figures in colonial history because of his involvement in two relatively famous trials.   In the first of these that occurred about 1654 Jeremiah was the defendant against a claim by an Indian chief,  Wayndanch, the Sachem of Meantaquit, who sued him for damages done to his canoe.  According to accounts,  the chief was a friend and visitor to Vail’s employer, a man named named Gardiner.  The chief often came to see the colonist in a large dug-out canoe.  Those boats were made by charring or chiseling out the trunk of a tulip poplar, a laborious process, and were quite valuable. 

 

As the story goes, Jeremiah was told by Gardiner to pull the canoe out of the water and onto land.   When he failed to do so in a timely fashion, the canoe was tossed by the current, filled with water, sank and considerably damaged.  Gardiner helped Wayndanch sue Vail in the local court where the Indian was awarded compensation of ten shillings.   Vail also had to pay one pound,  one shilling in court costs.  The conviction is accounted as the first time in Colonial history a Native American had ever successfully sued a white man.  Interestingly,  Jeremiah’s troubles with Indians continued.  In 1660 a cow he owned was seized by the town and sold in part to meet the claim of a Pequot Indian for unpaid labor.

Jeremiah’s second notable court appearance was more valorous.  In 1657, at the height of the Salem witch trials, Goody Garlick, the wife of Jeremiah’s next-door neighbor, Joshua Garlick, was brought before the court in Easthampton, Mass., on a charge of witchcraft.  She was accused of having exerted evil influences on certain ill persons and “weak-minded children.”   Under prevailing laws witchcraft was punishable by death. Jeremiah and his wife,  whose name is believed to be Catherine, appeared as defense witnesses for Mrs. Garlick. 

 

On February 27, 1657,  according to court records, the Vails told the court that the alleged supernatural events attributed to the housewife were nonsense and simply the result of ordinary physical causes.  Given the climate of the times, their testimony no doubt required considerable courage.  After much dithering, the local judges sent the case forward to Governor Winthrop, shown here  Known widely for his wisdom, Winthrop personally examined Goody, found her innocent, and quickly sent her back to her family with a letter admonishing town fathers to let the Garlicks alone.  The letter effectively ended witch trials in East Hampton.

Sometime around 1659, possibly affected by the death of his wife, Jeremiah moved to Southold, Long Island, where he owned property. With him were three children, two girls and a boy, 11, also named Jeremiah.  Possibly desiring a mother for his children, Jeremiah Sr. married a second wife in Southold a year later.  Shortly thereafter she also died. Twice a widower, he would marry a third time.  We know only that the first name of this wife was Joyce.  Accounted as a “strong. industrious, prudent, and God-fearing man,” Jeremiah died in 1687, about 70 years old.  For the next five generations, the eldest son in the Vail line was named Jeremiah, likely a sign of respect for the patriarch.

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The Wonder World of Electric Belts

 

When a major new technological advance little understood by the general public is coupled with human maladies for which there are no known remedies,  charlatans have a field day.  Thus it was with the phenomenon that gave rise to “electric belts.”  Those nostrums were among the most popular consumer medical products sold in the late 19th Century.  Fascinated by their merchandising, I am featuring here nine electric belt ads.

The exhibit begins with an ad from Dr. M.A. McLaughlin who peddled his “curative electricity” from his offices at Market & Kearney Streets in San Francisco and Spring & 2nd Streets in Los Angeles.  From the accompanying illustration, it would appear that Doc M. also was capable of generating electricity through his fingertips as well as his belts.  “You will find my application of electricity is the most intelligent and perfect of the age, the grandest invigorator of the age for weakness, the best tonic for your nerves…”  His belt was to be worn even at night until “your system becomes charged with reviving voltage.”

Dr. Scott, whose offices were on Broadway at 13th Street claimed that 17,000 New Yorkers were wearing them daily to cure complaints ranging from “male and female weakness” (read sexual problems)  to “kidney, liver and heart” disease.  Scott’ ad was filled with testimonials, including one from “Albert Krug” of Peoria Illinois:  “My father, 70 years old, could not walk 100 yards; after wearing the Belt one month, he walked nine miles without resting.”   Dr. Scott’s belt was cheap at $3.00 and likely generated no electricity at all, just pain from the hot pepper with which it likely was lined.

A man who clearly was in need of a barber was Dr. A. Owen, proprietor of The Owen Electric Belt and Appliance Co.  But then if your face is your trademark, cutting it short might invalidate the registration.  Dr. Owen’s belt is shown emitting lots of electric buzz from the silver-coated disks that are around the periphery of the belt.  As one observer has written: “The intimacy with which they came in contact with the body and the sophistication of their design and advertising materials made belts particularly influential objects for consumers with little electrical knowledge and great electrical enthusiasm.”

The Heidelberg Alternating Current Electric Belts came in a variety of styles, selling anywhere from $4.00 to $18.00 (equiv. to almost $400 today).  The expensive model was billed as Heidelberg’s “Giant Electric Power Belt.”  Note that it in addition to the discs common to most of these devices, this one has a feature designed to hold the male genitalia and give it a jolt of 80-gauge current.  In addition to regulating the liver, this belt is for “Chronic Nervous Diseases, Weaknesses.”  Wearing the belt brings “immediate relief and rapid improvement.”

My guess is that most electric belts were bought by men with erectile disfunction and the hucksters knew it.  Dr. Sanden in his ad makes no medical claims other than “It Cures When All Else Fails.”  Dr. Sanden claims:  “Therefore, when a man is broken down by the results of hard usage—when his vitality is low—Electricity poured into his nerves will build him up.”   Note the hanging gizmo pictured here designed to generate current to a vital organ.

The Dr. Bell Electro Belt used a dry cell battery to generate its electricity, an advance from the earlier wet cell batteries, an advance followed by plugs for wall sockets.  Like Dr. Sanden, Dr. Bell unabashedly advertised his belt as for men lacking “vitality.”  It also featured a hanging loop called a “suspensory”  meant to jingle suspended male parts.  Looking at this belt somehow reminds me of Darth Vader’s helmet from “Star Wars.”

American suckers were not the only customers for electric belts.  In England, however, one did not need a “Dr.” name to market the item.  Mr. C.B. Harness of London’s Oxford Street offered his “Electropathic Belt” as president of an outfit called The Electropathic and Zander Institute.  Harness, a former jeweler and furniture salesman, billed himself as a “medical electrician.” In 1892, a man sued him for fraud. He had used the belt to cure his hernia but it worsen the more he used the device. He won the case, and soon after Harness was bombarded with investigations and prosecutions.  One court case drew some 400 witnesses testifying against him.

Professor P. L. Pulvermacher, also a resident of London, was credited in company literature with inventing Electro-Galvanic Chains, that then were fashioned into belts and bands.  Based in San Francisco, the firm using his name advertised that electricity was “nature’s chief restorer” and denigrated traditional medicine as being “generally of no avail.”  This belt even got a word of approval from the British medical journal, Lancet.  It wrote:  “In these days of medico-galvanic quackery, it is a relief to observe the plain and straightforward way in which Pulvermacher’s apparatus is recommended to the profession.”

As a final look at electric belts consider the Howard Electric Shield.  Although it has every appearance of a belt (but no “suspensory”), its ad asserts that the device can be worn on any part of the body, not just the waist.  It emphasizes the ability of electricity to purify the blood proclaiming:  “Electricity is the Life of the Blood!  The Blood is the Life of the Body!”  Maladies like nervous debility, kidney disease, and male and female weakness are no match for the pure blood cleansed by Howard Galvanic Shield, offering speedy and positive cures.  Or so they said.

Today electric belts and their claims to cure a wide range of maladies seem ludicrous to the point of utter madness.  One must remember, however, that modern medicine was just in its infancy.  Although little understood, electricity was exciting the populace.  The hucksters could hardly help but take notice.  Taken altogether, the birth of the electric belt might seem virtually inevitable.Similarly inevitable was its decline and demise in the 20th Century, leaving us with only these imaginative ads to contemplate past chicanery.

Note:  Information and images for this post was gathered from multiple sources.  Chief among them were “The Great American Medicine Show” by David and Elizabeth Armstrong, Prentice Hall, 1991,” and “The Victorian Tool for Everything From Hernias to Sex—a Vibrating Electric Belt” by Lauren Young, July 12, 2016, online.