John B. Gough Returns to Port: A Temperance Blog Part II

He was ejected, arrested, bailed, and turned to singing dirty songs in dirtier pubs for drinking money, and as summer turned to fall, Gough faced a long New England winter with “no flannels, no woolen socks, and no coats”.

A few days later, as he was wobbling down the street to “a rum-hole in Lincoln Square to get a dram”, a man tapped him on the shoulder...

Read the title story following event announcements!

Upcoming Museum Events

Reading Frederick Douglass Together

Thursday July 4, 2024 10:00 am

Museum of Old Newbury Guided Tours are back!

Thursday - Sunday, 11:00am - 4:00 pm on the hour, beginning May 30

Architectural Walking Tours: Newburyport's Fashionable Old Houses

*NEW DATES ADDED!*

Due to popular demand, we have added 5 additional dates: June 23, July 14, August 11, September 8, and September 22

Two Notes of Thanks...

First of all, THANK YOU to all who opened their homes, sponsored, volunteered, visited, and otherwise supported the 45th Annual Old Newbury Garden Tour. We had a wonderful year, despite a rainy Sunday (and a deluge on Saturday in some spots!).

We are already looking at gardens for the 2025 tour, and are especially interested in gardens within walking distance of the museum. Do you know of an innovative, interesting, and inspiring garden in your neighborhood? Let us know and we'll make contact.

Until next year, keep dreaming your Garden Dreams!

Our second note of thanks goes to Penny Morrill, who wished to honor her late husband Jim with a tangible gift to the museum and the community. She chose the restoration of the iconic 1905 garden seat, completed this week by preservation carpenter Stephen Crosby.

Thank you, Penny. We will think of Jim when we are in the garden.

If you would like to make a donation in honor of a loved one, and would like some projects to consider, please email our director here.

James Agrippa "Jim" Morrill, 1946-2023

The 1905 garden seat as it looked in 1936

The restored garden seat today, thanks to the generosity of the Morrill family.

John B. Gough Returns to Port: A Temperance Blog Part II

by Bethany Groff Dorau, Executive Director

John Bartholomew Gough (1817-1886), in later years.

If you missed it, read John B. Gough Part I here.

This happens to me all the time, dear reader. I am introduced to a fascinating character who once graced the mean streets of Newbury(port), and I become immediately taken with their story. As I write about them, I do more research, and I find more things, and suddenly this blog is thousands of words long and I despair.

And then, voila, a solution. I will write a series! But life, and work, come at me sideways and I am distracted (or making sure you know all about the Garden Tour), or another article is more timely, and so I wander off the path only to discover, months later, that I have left some readers hanging.              

Popular images such as this 1832 lithograph promoted temperance long before John B. Gough found his calling on its stage. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Gosh, I love thinking of you sitting around waiting to hear more about John B. Gough, because it made me return to this story, which returns to me with the ease of a visit with a high school chum. So let us pick back up where we left off.

When last we left our dubious hero, actor, bookbinder, and erstwhile accordion player John B. Gough had followed the Bunker Hill Diorama to Worcester. It was there on May 20, 1842, that he lost his "Joppa gal", 21-year-old Mary Cheney, and his infant daughter, Mary Jane. According to his enthusiastic biographer, the death of his family led to a new low for John B. Gough. He attended a church revival meeting and clumsily (and, I admit, a little hilariously) tried to steal the collection with a spittoon. 

“Amid a fusillade of glorys, hallelujahs, and amens, the tipsy actor seized a huge, square, wooden spittoon, filled with sawdust, quids of tobacco, and refuse, and passing down the aisle, said: "We will now take a contribution for the purchase of ascension robes." 

He was ejected, arrested, bailed, and turned to singing dirty songs in dirtier pubs for drinking money, and as summer turned to fall and Gough faced a long New England winter homeless, with “no flannels, no woolen socks, and no coats”. Destitute and despondent, he drank everything he had, bought a bottle of laudanum (a mixture of alcohol and opium), and “proceeded to the railroad track, put the bottle to his lips, and was about to make an exit from life through the door of suicide”.

At the last moment, he failed to throw himself under the train as he had planned. A few days later, as he was wobbling down the street to “a rum-hole in Lincoln Square to get a dram”, a man tapped him on the shoulder.

Lincoln Square, Worcester, where Gough met the waiter who would change his life, c. 1852.



The man was Joel Stratton, and he was a waiter at the Temperance Hotel. He noted that Gough was drunk and invited him to a temperance meeting the following night. To make a very long story somewhat shorter, he went to the meeting, told his story to an appreciative audience, and signed the pledge to never drink again.

This sobriety pledge from the 1840's is likely similar to the one signed by Gough in 1842. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

How we understand what followed depends on what you think of John Bartholemew Gough. On the one hand, Gough the actor must have quickly noted the effects of his heart-rending tale on the audience, who proved willing to offer not only sympathy but food, clothes, and cash. On the other hand, Gough the hard drinker walked through the door looking for help. That his story struck a chord and led to wealth and fame beyond his wildest imaginings was a stroke of luck. Was he a desperate addict, a cynical opportunist, or both? Well, I can tell you one thing – John B. Gough knew a good thing when he saw it, and by December, 1842, an announcement in the Worcester Waterfall, a temperance newspaper, announced that he was available to lecture (for a fee), and was also selling subscriptions of the Waterfall on commission. Of course, his entire career now depended on not drinking, or at least keeping his drinking a secret.

The Massachusetts Cataract and Worcester County Waterfall was a short-lived temperance newspaper where Gough first announced his availability as a lecturer.

When the spring lecture season began, Gough set his sights on Newburyport, where he could return in triumph in his flashy new suit. By his own account, he made his way first to Boston, where he met with some chums for oysters and brandy and then went to his hotel to sleep it off. The next morning, he “started in the cars for Newburyport”. What exactly happened there is a mystery, though on March 20, a scandalized representative of the Women’s Temperance Society wrote to the newspaper to apologize for their speaker. “In all my experience and my knowledge of temperance lectures, I never saw one before who had the bold affrontery, the deliberate vulgarity, the cold impedance, to get up before respectable audience like that convenient in Phoenix Hall, and pour out such a heterogeneous mass of unmeaning, unintelligible sentences without the least connection and without point, and which could be understood only by those were in the habit of visiting those miserable abode of vice and infamy when the language used can only be equal by the vices which engender them.” Was this Gough, still in his cups? It seems likely, given his next move. Gough, humiliated, his blossoming career in jeopardy, returned to Worcester and did the only thing he could do – he confessed that he had fallen off the wagon, blaming some medicine given to him by a doctor for a headache. To his surprise, after tearfully pledging that he would “rise up and combat King Alcohol”, he found himself not shunned, but exalted by his audience, whose attendance, and donations, at his events only grew.

"King Alcohol", which Gough swore to "combat", was a common image in temperance literature. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

On May 2, 1845, the Women’s Temperance Society announced a lecture in Newburyport’s Market Hall (where the Firehouse Center for the Arts is today) featuring Daniel Kimball, editor of the Temperance Standard, a Boston newspaper. The events of two years earlier a distant memory, the redeemed Gough was invited to open the May 4 event with his unique combination of pathos, humor, and song. Though his performance that evening was generally well received, some Newburyporters had a bone to pick with John B. Gough, who had pilfered their wares, run off with their women, and, perhaps most egregiously, failed to pay his debts. And when, on May 6, he passed the time while waiting for his train bellied up to the bar at Jacob Danforth’s establishment, Newburyporters had a thing or two to say about it. 

You see, I did it again, gentle reader! Stay tuned for Part III as John Bartholomew Gough dabbles in extortion, visits a phantom soda fountain, and wakes up in a brothel.

Something Is Always Cooking...

This salad, with faro substituted for pita and feta for halloumi, was recently served to me at a small gathering by my friend and MOON board member Rebecca Brodish. It was absolutely perfect - a light but filling summer salad.

-Bethany

This colorful, meal-of-a-salad from Lidey Heuck’s cookbook, “Cooking in Real Life” (S&S/Simon Element, 2024), is inspired by two dishes: classic Greek salad (also known as horiatiki) and fattoush, the Lebanese salad of vegetables and pieces of fried pita. The ingredient list may look long at first, but each ingredient contributes to the harmony of the salad: bell pepper and cucumbers for crunch; shallot, olives, and capers for a bit of tang; chopped tomatoes for sweetness. Pan-fried halloumi adds richness and heft, but you can skip the searing process and instead opt for a 6-ounce block of feta, if desired. To save even more time, you can add a large handful of crumbled pita chips instead of making your own.

Taverna Salad

INGREDIENTS

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

1⁄3 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon minced garlic (1 small clove)

1⁄2 teaspoon dried oregano

Salt and pepper

3 medium tomatoes, cored, seeded and diced into 1⁄2-inch pieces (or 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes)

1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed

1 orange or yellow bell pepper, halved, seeded

and diced into 1⁄2-inch pieces

1⁄2 large English cucumber, halved, seeded and

diced into 1⁄2-inch pieces

1⁄2 cup pitted Kalamata olives

1⁄4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1⁄4 cup minced red onion or shallot

2 tablespoons (drained) capers, coarsely chopped

2 scallions, thinly sliced

1 (6-inch) pita

1 (8-ounce) block halloumi cheese, patted dry

and cut into 3⁄4-inch-thick slices

INSTRUCTIONS

•  In a small bowl, combine 1⁄3 cup olive oil with the vinegar, garlic and oregano. Whisk vigorously to combine then season to taste with salt and pepper.
•  In a large bowl, combine the tomatoes, chickpeas, bell pepper, cucumber, olives, parsley, red onion, capers and scallions. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss well.
• Chop the pita into 1-inch pieces and place them in a small bowl. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil, sprinkle with salt and toss to coat. Heat an 8-inch skillet over medium. Add the pita pieces and cook, tossing often, until toasted and golden brown, about 5 minutes. Return to the small bowl to cool, reserving the skillet.
• Place the halloumi slices on a small plate and drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Heat the same skillet over medium-high heat, and cook the halloumi until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a cutting board and cut the slices into bite-size cubes.
• Add the pita and halloumi to the salad, toss well and serve.

ENJOY!

Puzzle Me This...

This bottle of "vintage" Plum Island Ale is in our collection and utilizes an image of the Plum Island Lighthouse, also in our collection. This would have been off-limits to anyone who signed the temperance pledge.

Click the image to do the puzzle