HPL Walking Tour 20 August 2011

Celebrate the 121st birthday of America's master of the strange and macabre. Author of "The Thing on the Doorstep" and "The Call of Cthulhu," H.P. Lovecraft was born in Providence in 1890. Join us on a walking tour which explores the College Hill neighborhood where Lovecraft drew literary inspiration and where he called home.


H.P. Lovecraft:
A Literary Walking Tour
Saturday, August 20
11:00 a.m.
Tour departs from the John Brown House Museum
52 Power Street
Providence, RI
Contact Barbara Barnes: (401) 273-7507 x62 or bbarnes@rihs.org

Thaumaturgists Predict Doom of Providence! (1905)

WWLS?
(What would Lovecraft Say?)

He must have been appoplectic over the predictive catastrophe. Unlikely he went to see the Fays at the Providence Opera House! Heh. One imagines him wanting to dash off a letter to the Providence Journal on this one. A decade later he would have. At the time he was way too involved in astronomy to perhaps diverge on this issue. It was probably school holiday, otherwise it would have been the talk of the Hope Street High School.
_____

Providence, RI Jewelry Factory Explosion, Dec 1905
PANIC FOLLOWS EXPLOSION.
All Providence Scared Over Prediction of Christmas Disaster.

Special to The New York Times.

PROVIDENCE, R. I., Dec. 22.---A slight explosion in a jewelry factory, within a short block of the shopping district caused by a panic to-day among the several hundred employes[sic] in the building, two men being painfully injured and a dozen women fainting before any attempt was made to ascertain the nature of the trouble.

The explosion occurred in the Enterprise Building at 7 Eddy Street and was caused by the clogging of a waste pipe in the factory of the Cutler Comb Company. Fire started immediately after the explosion and two or three moments later the street below was filled with fire apparatus.

Seven of the girls in the jewelry concern of Hamilton & Hamilton, Jr., on the fifth floor fainted and others followed suit in other parts of the building. Dozens of the girls ran out on to the fire escapes and stood there screaming. Policemen spreading through the building drove them back and got all safely to the street. Two men were slightly hurt.

The fire was extinguished without trouble, the damage amounting to not more than $1,000.

It is believed that had it not been for the nervous tension existing throughout the city over the prediction that a boiler explosion would occur about Christmas time in a large store of this city the affair of this morning would hardly have been noticed by the employes[sic] in the building.

According to the stories in circulation the prophecy was made six weeks ago by "The Fays," who gave a three-nights' entertainment in the Providence Opera House, and who call themselves "thaumaturgists."

They claim to have foretold the Chicago theatre fire and other great calamities, and stories concerning the prediction have been circulated so peristently[sic] that the owners of the big stores, while realizing the absurdity of the prediction, have taken every precaution to guard against accident for the purpose of allaying the superstitious fears of the shoppers.

In every one of the big stores, it is said, there has been a careful inspection of the boilers, and last night one of the largest stores advertised in a local paper that the fires under the boilers in that store had been drawn, and that the elevators were being run with electricity.

The New York Times, New York, NY 23 Dec 1905

Winter Scene of Providence

This scene would have been when Lovecraft was about 10 years old give or take a few years.


By accounts, Lovecraft was not sensitive to the cold in his youth. Only later in life did he seem to develop a traumatic form of cold sensitivity.

Happy Halloween !!

A real life "ghost story" from the Providence News. Lovecraft read it? He'd trip !

Brown College Library (1890's)

This is the library in Lovecraft's early youth and before he was born.

From a stereoview and a postcard. The eagle-eyed seller on Ebay noted that the photographer accidentally captured his traveling, horse-drawn dark room used for developing the pictures.

While the postcard was "photoshopped" as was the custom, the stereoview was a virtual 3-D or hologram of the place. Yes, they had holograms in the 19th century ! In the postcard, the image enhancer deleted the trees in the foreground, but not the shadows cast by the tree. Also, the postcard is a bit later, as the top floor (turret) is slightly altered and may date from the 1890's. The stereo-view may be the late 1870's or 1880's.

Amazing detail. One can almost see Howard walking around with books tucked under his arm. It's a virtual time machine of the imagination.

Whipple's Providence of the 1870's

As a few of you know, Chrispy has spent months accumulating data on Whipple van Buren Phillips. Why? Even I don't really know, but the man was incredible. This is not the venu to do a lot of sharing just yet, but one must pause to think.

Lovecraft became increasingly nostalgic about old Providence. However, he seemed to purposely leap frog past Whipple's Providence, to the Georgian era. To him it was a particularly fascinating era, and he often daydreamed himself there.

The Whipple-era Providence was bustling, growing, and a bit gritty. Providence blew past Newport to become a top 20 American city teaming with immigrants. They were the fodder for the industrialization of America, and much of Whipple's business fed timber and coal to that hoi poloi.



There was no EPA, and Whipple would have been appalled by sch a thing. Pollution was the lubricant of business, and business was all to the tycoons of the gilded era. Where Thoreau might have seen the rape of Nature, Whipple would have seen progress. Lovecraft would have seen Juan Romero and some monsters lurking. But that's another story. heh.

These are typical stereoscopic and sepia images, the forerunners of viewmasters. And if you are too young to recall the power and glory of viewmaster, think of them as 3-d holograms. These are the Providence that Lovecraft did not see, as they are dated to the 1870's. He saw the same places 25 and even 50 years later, but they had been upgraed, torn down or become more delapidated as the case might have been.

Whipple apparently flitted back and forth between western Rhode Island and Providence as he variously created enterprises, went in and out of bankruptcy, fought numerous litigations, and finally settled permanently into Providence hesitating only briefly before he decided on his obsessive, final and fatal conquest and terraforming of Idaho's Bruneau River valley.

His story is a worthy one, and the famous (to Lovecraftians) Idaho adventure was but the finale of an incredible career that has yet to be fully excavated by historians.

A Spritualist in Lovecraft's Providence

The year: 1915

A susceptible patron wanders into 221 Broadway to meet ... Frank H. Roscoe, speaker and message bearer.

Providence had psychics! Right in the path of Lovecraft's 25 year old gaze.

It's unknown if he ever met them, saw them, or opposed them. However, in two ephemera - theater programs - that Chrispy obtained, he found an advertisement for F. H. Roscoe. That led to a finding in the 1916 Spritualist: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Psychical Research and Occultism, 1916, By C. P. Christensen.

In that magazine, we read of:

Frank H. Roscoe, speaker and message bearer, 221 Broadway, Providence, RI

He had a competitor:

Mrs. M. M. Darling, The Blind Medium, 533 Cranston Street, oppposite Bellevue Avenue.

Roscoe was a long time resident (as early as 1886) of Providence.

(1899)

and he advertised in various ways

(1896)

In addition, Roscoe was a man on the move. He filed with the Legislature (page 615) as below:



(4 April 1916) I, J Fred Parker, secretary of state hereby certify that Frank H Roscoe, William H Farnworth, Abel J Satchell, Arthur Hindley, and Albert T Marsh have filed in the office of the secretary of state according to law their agreement to form a corporation under the name of The Rhode Island State Progressive Spiritualists Association for the purpose of educational charitable and missionary work in the interest of the religion of spiritualism in accordance with law and have also filed the certificate of the general treasurer that they have paid into the general treasury of the state the fee required by law.

Evangeline Larry: Teacher of Violin

Once again, we see that Lovecraft's sitz im leben (setting in life) places him in the midst of a "trend" in Providence. Recently, Chrispy has given you the biography of Mrs. Nauck, his violin teacher. "For two years I made such progress that Mrs. Nauck was enthusiastic...". She was, by Lovecraft's memory, the preeminent teacher for children. However, there were many others, it appears, who made a living teaching violin.

Providence was growing rapidly (akin to the growth of a Las Vegas today). Plenty of opportunity.

We saw a glimpse of Oscar C Roy, a Belgian. Today, we find another prominent violin teacher in Providence: Miss Evangeline Larry circa 1895.

For such teachers to have enough students for support, there had to be "a trend in the wind", methinks. It was the thing to do. Recall that in this era - the 1890's - much entertainment was done at home of the stylish and elite. Theater was held, but singing, piano playing, and so forth were often after dinner evening divertiments. (Watch the wonderful movie, Meet Me In St Louis, for instance, a nostalgic reproduction displaying circa 1903).




WHEN we affirm that one possesses the soul of genius, we have touched the foundation on which greatness is built. Evangeline Larry possesses in a large degree, both by nature and education, the elements which combine to make the true and successful musician. To know her and understand her temperament, is to recognize that she belongs to the class of artists who win honor and fame. Though born in Weston, Mass., in 1872, she removed to Penacook, N. H., soon after, where her father, Rev. John Hale Larry, was actively interested in educational work, and it was in the Granite state that she took her first violin lessons, when eight years of age, and commenced the development of her wonderful musical powers. Subsequently the family removed to Providence, R I., where her study became methodical, earnest work, her parents deciding to fit her for a professional career. For several years she has been a student with Herr Kneisel of Boston, and to-day she is the most prominent violin teacher in Providence. As a concert violinist she fills many engagements ; she plays with fine artistic taste and finish, possessing to an unusual degree that rare quality, soulfulness. Her musical insight and interpretation lend great charm to her rendition of the classics, while her coloring of some delicate bits of composition, is wonderfully dainty and exquisite. Miss Larry is modest and unassuming, with a sweet graciousness of manner which wins many warm friends. Musically considered, she is doing a phenomenal work for one so young. Strongly devoted to her art, it is her plan to broaden her culture by study in Europe. She has the ideal home environment, where she has been carefully nurtured and educated. Her musical ability has been used in pleasant cooperation with her father in his ministerial duties. Her summers are spent with the family at " The Manse," their summer home at Penacook.

Providence Depot (1896) on Fire !

Lovecraft Loved Trains circa 1896. He would have noted this one, even though only 6.
____

Providence, RI Depot Fire, Feb 1896

RAILROAD STATION IN FLAMES

Fire in Providence Which Threatens the Destruction of a Valuable Building.

Providence, R. I., Feb. 21.---The railroad station in this city known as the Providence Depot, is on fire.

Undoubtedly it will be burned to the ground.

The fire started a few minutes after midnight.

The New York Times, New York, NY 21 Feb 1896

Oscar C Roy

Shades of Erich Zann?

To Chrispy's knowledge, Lovecraft only learned violin from Mrs. Nauck. HPL and Roy probably never met. However, Mrs. Nauck had competition in town. Through an odd circumstance, the image of Roy was preserved and sold on Ebay. I was compelled to check it out, and discovered an ad in an old 1905 cookbook "Choice Receipts Arranged by Ladies of St. Mary's Guild of Grace Church of Providence Rhode Island" which was preserved by Google Books.

At long last, Lovecraftians, for the first time in over a century, Mr. Roy and his advertisement have been rejoined.





The seller's notes: Antique Photo of Violinist. Matted in original 6 " X 8" frame with the name "Ye Rose Studio" Providence, R.I. on bottom right corner. On the back of the Matte is written " Monsieur Oscar C. Roy - Winter 1902 - 1903". Would look great framed in an avid violinist's home.

The text of the ad.

OSCAR C ROY
TEACHER OF VIOLIN
ROOM 23
CONRAD BUILDING
385 Westminster St
Providence RI
Mr Roy received his Violin education from the Belgian Masters at the Royal Conservatory of Music Brussels, Belgium

An Aside: An 1859 Quaker Letter

When I read the seller's excerpts of this letter, it struck me like something out of a Nyarlathotep sequel. And the language was enough to make Lovecraft's long s's swoon.

The writing is tough, but remember, click on the images and they should expand into a new window.

The seller's notes:

1859 PROVIDENCE, [RHODE ISLAND] LETTER - RAILROAD ACCIDENT; STORM - QUAKER - Autograph letter signed, E. A. Sheffield", Providence, 4th mo 3rd [18]59, 3 1/2pp, 5" x 8". Legible ink to cousin Lydia.

Personal content with interesting news on a storm and grim train accidents:

"...the wind blew violently during the day...The New Port boat could not get at the wharf...signs were blown down, empty boxes on the sidewalks were taken up in the air as high as the buildings."

"A man who was walking on the track in the vicinity of Olneyville was fatally injured day before yesterday by the engine of the Hartford Train which knocked him from the track and mangled his body in a shocking manner. He was taken to Dr. Miller's office at six o'clock and died. There was another who was caught under a bridge on Smith Street. His arm was badly hurt. It was amputated by Dr. Beckwith...."

A Divergence: Providence 1910 (Mowry)

Lovecraft had a slight bit of Mowry blood, but these 1910 pictures have nothing whatsoever to do with him. They were just too cute not to show.

The seller stated that these were of the Mowry-Inman clan.

I also have a soft spot when old family pictures go on the auction block - like Dicken's Marley, a soul banished to wander: unwanted, unremembered. But not today! We see and remember.

It looks like the date is a hot summer 4th of July as there is a small flag. Oklahom made it in November 16, 1907, so there are probably 46 stars on the flag. Look closely and you will see a tiny fragment of Providence in the background, an awning on some unnamed building.

OK, let's see, I guess Lovecraft was 19 years old when this picture was taken being roughly 7 weeks away from him turning 20. He was starting to think about studying chemistry by correspondence school, otherwise was keeping a low profile and coming out at nights.

What else? Hmm, recently it looks like I came across some information on Edwin E Phillips starting a number of new businesses about this time. I'll post about them one of these days. And, Lovecraft's passing friend, Philbrick, was in college by now - soemwhere I have a clipping where he was a stage manager for some Brown University prodction or other folderol.

Ah, Providence of 1910!

Did Lovecraft See a Camel?

Well, OK, it's unlikely. But it is intriguing. This postcard is an image of a camel named or signified as "Holy Moses". Some masonic lodge owned this and paraded it about for kids and others to see. This day when the picture was taken, it was at Roger Williams Park. Would Grandfather Whipple have taken young Howard to see this creature circa 1900? Notice the bicycle in the picture - a bicycle like which HPL first obtained on his birthday 20 August 1900?

Chripy found this small blurb in an old book dating to 8 February 1902 (The School Journal Vol 64):





Somerville Mass Miss Roxbury principal of the Davis school has been invited to a position in the Rhode Island normal school at Providence and has resigned Miss Mary A Holt has been promoted to fill the vacancy and Miss Gertrude D Goodale has been elected second assistant in the school Tufts college has lately received several valuable specimens for the museum from Frank C Bostock who has an animal show in Boston Among these was the great camel known as Holy Moses and a number of rare snakes The last and perhaps the most valuable gift was an exceedingly fine specimen ot the Wapiti deer the largest ever exhibited Alive it was as large as a good sized ox and its horns measure more than six feet from tip to tip

A Providence Lawyer (1905)

(More Images below text)

I'm adding this item from Ebay scans because - well, it may one day have Lovecraft significance. In the last month, I've seen names connected by one, two, or three degrees of separation that I never expected to be connected tangentially to Lovecraft and his family.

The price prohibited me from bidding, and it is still up for bod for you Providence historians, but I can't. Two images are scans of the same page.

1905 Diary Logbook Rhode Island Lawyer Marquis DL Mowry

The seller's notes:
Diary of Marquis De Lafayette Mowry

1905 Diary & Notebook of daily activities – Family and Weekly Work as a lawyer in Providence

Every day is filled in – the temperatures and weather is noted for each day of the year - he fills out his entire day's activities and who he saw with any legal notes. One of the pages copied notes the death of Arlon Mory on March 8, 1905 at 1:00 am and Arlon was born on February 23, 1833. So he might have written other family dates into the diary if they occurred in 1905.

More notes and his signature is written many times in the back pages of this book after December 31st page.

His signature is verified in a Genealogy History of the Mowry family found in the book entitled , “The Descendants of John Mowry of Rhode Island by William A. Mowry (Providence, RI: Preston & Rounds Co.,1909).* Copy is kept at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. I have scanned the genealogical information of Marquis De Lafayette Mowry from this book and will be included with auction. I also copied several of the census records of his man and his family. This will be listed below.

* Marquis D L Mowry as born on September 17, 1838, married (1) Laura J. Kimball and (2) Sarah Arnold, died on December 11, 1914. His father and mother were Richard Mowry (1809-1870) and Lavina ____ (1803-1842). Marquis’ great grandfather was Arnold Mowry (1784- ) and great grandmother was Mercy Barnes. His great-great grandfather was Richard Mowry (1749-1835) married to Hannah Arnold.

An important note is that Marquis lived in the home of his great-great grandfather Richard Mowry (home built in 1819) at the time this book was written so this would be the home he lived in when he was writing this Diary. See the scanned picture.

The Mowry book follows the family back several more generations to Roger Mowry (born in England-died in Providence Rhode Island on 5 Jan 1666). It is very interesting history and I copied the direct ancestors of Marquis. The rest of the book can be seen online and copied as you wish.

I have scanned here the picture of Marquis De Lafayette Mowry and the home he lived in from the book. Also copied the signature from the book and the diary.

The diary is not that easy to read but after looking at it for a while you can get used to the handwritten and make out quite a bit. I found these names mentioned on several pages but there are many more names written: A. J. Curley, Martha E Laurence, Clarence A. Smith, Niles H. Arnold, Bert Smith, Walter L. Brin, Wilson & Mory, Miss Pry, Mr. Boyles, Mr. Cornell, Eliakin Mory, Sarah L. Winfield, Wilson O. Mory, and many Mory (sic) family members.

Marquis De Lafayette Mowry's law business was located at 13 Market Square Room 6. Copy of the Directory page will be included.

Other facts found on the internet are these: Marquis and Sarah are buried in Union Cemetery in North Smithfield Rhode Island. He died on 11 Dec 1914 [Wikipedia – north Smithfield RI]. There is a large monument to the Mowry family in this cemetery. There is a book of it with pictures and another family genealogy at the www.archives.org website.

I am selling this diary as is. The cover is worn on the edges as shown. The ink is darker on the front pages and lighter on the back pages. I have scanned pages from the front and the back of the book. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Old Providence (c. 1870)

This is more the Providence of Whipple Phillips and his children. Lovecraft would have only heard about it as Providence was doubling its population roughly every generation through all the way until HPL's death in 1937.

This was the Providence that was still small and village-like. Look at all the church steeples in the background. The large reservoir. This was what Lovecraft felt in his quiet Angell Street neighborhood even though Providence had exploded past that stage even when he was a little, little boy.


... antique engraving dated 1872 of The City of Providence From Prospect Hill on heavy quality paper ...

From this book ...

Rustic Providence

Lovecraft in his youth, used to love the rustic areas surrounding Providence. As a child, he imagined haunted woods filled with Greek legendaries. You can sort of see why in this sepia image circa 1900.

Lovecraft and Bicycles

Did Lovecraft's birtday present of 20 August 1900 cost $100? Probably not.

One suspects this is an early "engined bicycle" of some sort. The first "Peerless" appeared in 1903 (Louis Moore), so this was probably - as implied - a second hand vehicle. Now, $100 is not exactly pocket change to most of us in 2010, but in 1905 it was EXPENSIVE! An interesting touchstone for the history of young Lovecraft.

(One suspects Herreshoff knew Mr. and Mrs. Wilhelm Nauk, HPL's violin teacher)

(Steam "bicycles" appeared about 1899, and bicycle companies moved to engined bicycles a few years later according to a reference book).




The following comes for the auction sale:

The Westminster School of Languages and Music
Julian L Herreshoff, Director
Butler Exchange Room No. 523 Fifth Floor Providence RI Sep 13 1895

Received of Miss F D Gladdnig for one Peerless bicycle, one hundred dollars ($100 0/00) payment in full. Julian L Herreshoff
2 cents stamp on the back.

Measures 5 by 8 inches. Previously folded and with some tears. See photos for condition (Please note that the "watermark" does not appear in the actual photo)

From a web search:
Julian Lewis Herreshoff, ninth child and seventh son of Charles Frederick and Julia Ann (Lewis) Herreshoff, was born July 29, 1854, at Point Pleasant Farm, Bristol, R. I. He was educated at the local schools of Bristol. His talents and abilities, while very marked, are in a different line from those of the rest of his family, and are concerned with the fine rather than the liberal arts. In the year 1886 he went to Germany, and for two years studied at the University of Berlin, where he became proficient in languages and music. Returning to this country he established the Westminster School of Languages and Music, in Providence, which he himself organized and had developed.

11 July 1907 - - Clams !

Lovecraft and Clams? Ia!!

Providence's Old Home Week was celebrated 28 July to 5 August 1907- not quite a month before Lovecraft's 17th birthday. From an historical perspective, he was very close to disappearing from our sight for a number of years at this point.

Biltmore Hotel 1923

When the coach crossed the Pawcatuck and entered Rhode Island amidst the faery goldenness of a late spring afternoon his heart beat with quickened force, and the entry to Providence along Reservoir and Elmwood Avenues was a breathless and wonderful thing despite the depths of forbidden lore to which he had delved. At the high square where Broad, Weybosset, and Empire Streets join, he saw before and below him in the fire of sunset the pleasant, remembered houses and domes and steeples of the old town; and his head swam curiously as the vehicle rolled down to the terminal behind the Biltmore, bringing into view the great dome and soft, roof-pierced greenery of the ancient hill across the river, and the tall colonial spire of the First Baptist Church limned pink in the magic evening against the fresh springtime verdure of its precipitous background. Old Providence! It was this place and the mysterious forces of its long, continuous history which had brought him into being, and which had drawn him back toward marvels and secrets whose boundaries no prophet might fix.

- The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (early 1927)
{He says "caoch", but of course he means "motor-coach" not a "horse and buggy coach" as he slyly might imply)


(Two different writers describe virtually the same scene - Lovecraft with an heir of horrific fantasy and an anonymous ad copy writer for the modern man)

from a book dated 1923
Lovecraft was about 33 - just getting ready to head off to NY for a while.

This was an impressive structure, and would have been the talk of Providence for a time.

Lovecraft's Neighbor (1903) Knowles

Only tangential to Lovecraft, but he would have seen this family and known of them. He would have been 13 or so.
_____

"Curiosities", The Streand Magazine, p. 357, 1903



ANOTHER EXPERIMENT IN DYNAMICS IN the Curiosities in The Strand for June it was stated that if a half unrolled spool of thread is placed on a table and the thread pulled horizontally from the under side of it the spool contrary to general expectation will roll towards the hand In connection with this it is interesting to note that if the cylinder is larger in diameter at the point around which the thread is wound than it is at the points on which it rolls it will roll away from the hand when the thread is pulled This experiment can be tried by passing a pencil through a spool and resting the ends of it on two books as in the illustration Also if the thread be drawn from the under side of a it spool resting on a flat surface the spool will not move in either direction I was led to these conclusions which I afterwards verified by trying in the case of the half unrolled spool mentioned in the June Strand to calculate the ratio between the rate of the spool and that of the hand as the hand pulled the thread This makes a very interesting little problem Mr J Courtland Knowles 2 Angel Street Providence RI US A