Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World Introduction
G.L. Lincoln, ed., Narratives of the
Witchcraft Case, New York, 1914. Eustis Street Burying Ground, Roxbury (located
at the intersection of Eustis and Washington Streets in
Roxbury). Grave of Robert Calef,
Roxbury (Plate 37). His original tombstone no longer marks his grave
but has been replaced by a more modern version. The original epitaph,
which was written in Latin and was not placed on this latest stone,
read in part: Indeed, history remembers all too well "What
Grief" he brought to those accused in 1692. Robert Calef, author of
More Wonders of the Invisible
World, is buried here beneath a small
gravestone (Plate 37) carved by a member of the Foster family of
Dorchester. The inscription reads: "Here lyes Buried the Body of Mr.
Robert Calef Aged Seventy one years Died April The Thirteenth 1719."
Calef wrote his More Wonders, he tells us, as a rebuke to those who
still believed in the methods used in the 1692 witch hunt. He feared
the witch hunt "should be Acted over again inforced by their Example,
rather than that it should Remain as a Warning to Posterity." It is
widely believed that Calef received much of his material for the book
from Thomas Brattle. The book's attacks on Reverend Cotton Mather were so
harsh that no Boston printer would accept it, so Calef was forced to
send it to England for publication. Calef himself was a
cloth merchant and served Roxbury as a selectman until his
death. A Delusion of Satan : The Full Story of the Salem
Witch Trials by Frances Hill,
Karen Armstrong (Introduction). Paperback (October 1997) Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut,
1647-97 by J. J Taylor
FROM "MORE WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD," BY
ROBERT CALEF, 1700 [291 INTRODUCTION Of Robert Calef almost nothing
is known except what can be learned from his book. There has even
been doubt as to whether, of the two Robert Calefs known to us in
Boston at this time, the writer was the father or the son. In 1692,
the time of the Salem witchcraft, the father's age was 44, the son's
18.149 It is unlikely that anybody would have
thought of the son but for a note copied into one of the
memorandum-books of Dr. Jeremy Belknap (1744-1798).150 This note, of unknown source reads: "Robert Calef,
author of `More Wonders of the Invisible World,' printed at London in
1700, was a native of England; a young man of good sense, and free
from superstition; a merchant in Boston. He was furnished with
materials for his work by Mr. Brattle, of Cambridge; and his brother,
of Boston; and other gentlemen, who were opposed to the Salem
proceedings. -- E. P." The writer speaks as if with knowledge; and
that so sound a historian as Dr. Belknap should have copied the note
speaks for its worth. Able scholars have by it been led to ascribe
the book to the younger Robert; but more careful study seems to show
the objections insuperable. The author never adds "Jr." to his name,
as a son would have done, and as seems to have been the younger
Robert's custom. 151 He
never pleads youth, even [292] when most apologetic; and, what weighs
more, his indignant foes, seeking all ways to discredit him, never
hint at such a thing. His matter and style have in them nothing of
boyishness; and once, in words suggestive of a migrant and a man of
years, he speaks (p. 297, below) of "sound Reason, which is what I
have been long seeking for in this Country in vain." Most serious of
all, his handwriting seems that found in documents clearly the elder
Calef's, and is that of a mature and even by 1700 that of an aging
man; while that of the younger Robert was in 1719-1722 still firm and
flexible -- and notably different. 152 Robert Calef the elder came to
America at some time before 1688. He was a cloth-merchant, and doubtless a maker
as [293] well as a seller of cloths. 153 Of his
eight children the eldest was, in 1692, a physician in Ipswich. What
led to the writing of More Wonders he has himself told us in his
book. It remains only to testify to the care and exactness which all
comparison of his work with the records seems to show, and to remark
that to a student of the literature of witchcraft it is evident that
his reading is larger than he cares to parade. Though he clearly
belonged to the popular party, this is as likely to be a result as a
cause -- it is probably neither -- of his feeling on the subject of
the witch superstition; and that he had else any grievance against
the Mathers or their colleagues there is no reason to think.
His book, though completed in
1697, was not printed till 1700, and then
in London. In June, 1698, Cotton Mather records in his diary that "a
sort of a Sadducee in
this town" "hath
written a Volumn of invented and notorious lies"; "this Volumn," he adds, "hee is, as I understand,
sending to England, that it may bee printed there." Why it found no
printer in New England can be guessed; the storm it raised when it
appeared in print is well known. President Increase Mather "ordered
the wicked book to be burnt in the college yard," 154 and his son's diary is eloquent with
vexation. "Some Years ago," runs his
entry of November 15, 1700, "a very wicked sort of a Sadducee in this
Town, raking together a crue of Libels, which he had written at
several Times, [294] (especially relating to the Wonders of the
Invisible World which have been among us) wherein I am the
cheef Butt of his
malice, (tho' many
other better Servants of the Lord are also most maliciously abused by
him:) he sent this vile Volume to London to be published. Now, tho' I
had often and often cried unto the Lord, that the Cup of this Man's
abominable Bundle of Lies, written on purpose, with a Quil under a
special Energy and Management of Satan, to damnify my precious
Opportunities of Glorifying my Lord Jesus Christ, might pass from me;
Yett, in this point, the Lord has denied my Request: the Book is
printed, and the Impression is this week arrived here." It was even felt necessary to
print a reply; but the two Mathers held it beneath them to plead in
their own vindication. It fell to their parishioners. "My pious
neighbours are so provoked," writes Cotton Mather (December 4), "at
the diabolical Wickedness of the Man who has published a Volume of
Libels against my Father and myself, that they sett apart whole Dayes
of Prayer, to complain unto God against him." The outcome of their
communings together was a pamphlet called Some Few Remarks upon a
Scandalous Book against the Gospel and Ministry of New England,
written by one Robert Calef. It was signed by seven, one of them John
Goodwin; but the materials were furnished by their pastors. It aimed
however at their personal exculpation, and has small interest for the
public story.155
The doughty merchant survived
the storm. In 1702-1704 he served his townsmen as an overseer of the poor,
in 1707 [295] was chosen an assessor, in 1710 a tithingman. It was perhaps about this time that he retired to
Roxbury, where in 1707 he had bought a place and where he was a
selectman of the town when, in 1719, death found him. There, in the
old burial ground just opposite his home, a stone still testifies
that "Here lyes buried the body of Mr. Robert Calef, aged seventy-one years, died April the Thirteenth,
1719." 156 Calef's
book has been five
times reprinted: in 1796, at Salem, by William Carlton (12o, pp.
318); again at Salem, in 1823, a mere reimpression, with the
addition, from the court files, of Giles Corey's examination (12o,
pp. 312); in Boston, 1828 (24o, pp. 333), again a reimpression; at
Salem, 1861, edited by Mr. S. P. Fowler, with Cotton Mather's
Wonders, in his volume Salem Witchcraft (see p. 207); and, more
faithfully, in 1866 at Roxbury, as nos. VI., VII., of Woodward's
Historical Series, under the editorship of S. G. Drake (see pp.
207-208). The present text follows the original edition (1700), but
corrects it by the list of Errata to be found in the copy (once
Cotton Mather's) possessed by the Massachusetts Historical
Society.157 Footnotes Notes [149]. S. G. Drake, in the
introduction to his edition of Calef, would make his age 14; but the genealogist of the family, Mr.
Matthew A. Stickney, says 18. Yet Mr. Stickney urges the father's
authorship (N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register, XXX. 461; XLIX. 224). He
died in 1894, leaving this genealogy, alas, unpublished, and his
heirs decline to let it be consulted. [150]. Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Proceedings, 1858, p. 288. [151]. Thus in 1706 "Robt.
Calef, Jun.," was chosen a clerk of the market (Boston Record
Commissioners' Reports, VIII. 36); thus in 1708 "Robert Calef, junr."
becomes a constable (id., VIII. 45), and gains
permission to erect a
house (id., XI. 68,
XXIX. 187); thus, too, in that year (see plate) he signs himself "Ro.
Calfe Jnr"; thus in 1710 "Robert Calfe, Jr.," appears on the rolls of
the Artillery Company (N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register, XXXVIII. 341);
and it is after his father's death that (see plate) in 1719 to a
receipted account, in 1721 to his will, in 1722 to the release of a
mortgage, he signed "Rob Calfe", "Ro: Calfe", "Robert Calfe" (see the
last two in Drake's Witchcraft Delusion, II. xxii, xxiv). [152]. From the author of More
Wonders we have two unquestionable autographs: (1) his marginalia of
1695 on Cotton Mather's paper (see below, p. 306, note 1) and (2) a
letter of 1700 presenting a copy of his book to the Earl of
Bellomont, then governor of Massachusetts and New York. A [of the
former is to be photographed in the Massachusetts Historical
Society's Proceedings for 1913-1914; and the latter (now in the New
York Public Library) is reproduced in full in the Memorial History of
Boston (II. 168). Specimens of both are given in our own plate; and
to these are added (1) the signature "Robert Calef" from the report of two appraisers, October 30,
1693; (2) the signature "Robt. Calef" from the verdict of a Boston
coroner's jury, January 15, 1696; (3) the same signature, with a line
or two of text in the same hand, from the decision of two arbitrators
(Boston, July 29, 1697); and (4) the last lines and the signature of
a paper drawn by "Robt. Calef" as a selectman of Roxbury in March,
1717 (?). That all six specimens are in the same hand, and in a hand different from
the younger Calef's, will hardly be questioned. Is not the older
Robert, too, more likely than the younger to have been an appraiser
in 1693, a coroner's juror in 1696, and an arbiter in 1697? And
(though Calef and Calfe were undoubtedly pronounced alike or nearly
so) is it not less probable that the author of More Wonders changed
the habitual spelling of his signature than that a younger Robert, if
not the author, should thus have distinguished his identity from his
father's? What arguments led the genealogist Stickney to ascribe the
book to the father cannot now be learned: the "full statement of the
reasons" promised by him to the N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register (see
XXX. 461) was, like his genealogy, never published. But, from an
article on "Robert Calef" by Mr. W. S. Harris in the Granite Monthly
for 1907 (XXXIX. 157-163), and from correspondence with its author,
it is learned that another student of the Calef pedigree (Mr. W. W.
Lunt, of Hingham, Mass.) has reached that result by a comparison of
handwritings. Mr. Harris, it should be added, quotes the
Rev. John Kelly as saying in a funeral sermon (1808) for Judge John
Calfe (b. 1740) of Hampstead, N. H., that the latter's ancestor (who
was the elder Calef, not the younger) was the author of the
book. [153]. In 1701 Cotton Mather
calls him "the Weaver (though he presumes to call himself Merchant)"
(Some Few Remarks, p. 35). [154]. Eliot, Biographical
Dictionary (1809), s. v. "Calef." [155]. Let any who would know
the contents of the excessively rare little booklet turn to the works
of Upham and Poole mentioned on p. 91; and in his Diary (I. 383-384)
Mather narrates how the book was compiled. The More Wonders it
describes as "a Libellous Book lately come into this Countrey...
which is writ (with what help we know not) by one Robert Calef, who
presumes to call himself Merchant of Boston." "It was highly
rejoicing to us," add the writers, "when we heard that our
Booksellers were so well acquainted with the Integrity of our
Pastors, as that not one of them could admit of any of those Libels
to be vended in their shops." Pp. 34-50 of its seventy-one pages are
taken up by a letter of Cotton Mather to the authors. It was perhaps
a passage in Mather's letter that led "E. P." to think Robert Calef a
"young man"; for those words, in italics and with capital initials,
stare from a sentence so obscure that to a hasty glance Calef,
instead of Mather himself, might easily seem to be meant. [156]. For these and other
personal details see Drake's memoir, in his ed. of Calef, and his
History and Antiquities of Boston, pp. 529, 531; Boston Record
Commissioners' Reports, I. 156, 160, VII. 210, 218, 225, 229, VIII.
24, 26, 31, 33, 41, 43, 75, IX. 179, 195, XI. 145; Memorial History
of Boston, IV. 652; F. S. Drake, The Town of Roxbury (Boston, 1905),
pp. 102, 140-149; N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register, XIV. 52; and the
above-cited article of W. S. Harris, which has a photograph of the
gravestone. From these mentions will be learned also the name of his
wife, Mary, and of the two of his eight children who were born (1688,
1691) after his coming to Boston. It will be learned, too, that in
1692 he was a constable, in 1694 hayward and fenceviewer, in 1697 a
surveyor of highways, in 1698 a clerk of the market. At least it is
to "Robert Calef," not to "Robert Calef, Jr.," that the records award
these offices. And it is perhaps to be noticed that while the name of
"Robert Calef" is often preceded by "Mr.", that title does not appear
before that of "Robert Calef, Jr." [157]. See Drake's ed., III.
223.
