The Haunted Cabinet of Caroline Cushing...a blog by Bethany Groff Dorau
Every profession has it – the question or comment that is repeated so often as to become a punch line.
To artists: “Will you design my tattoo?”
To bartenders: “Make me something YOU like.”
To brewers: “My party/event/club will be excellent exposure for your product!”
And to museum people: “Is this place haunted?”
I’ll share a secret. This place is haunted. Or, depending on who I’m talking to, this place is definitely not haunted. You see, there is no better way to lose all credibility with non-believers than to admit to the ethereal activities of your museum. But I have yet to be more than one cocktail into a gathering of my peers before someone tells a story where something inexplicable or serendipitous happens. And so, most of us live in the middle space, convinced by our own experience that there are deeper forces at work in our relationships with the corporeally dead, and simultaneously convinced that there is a rational, reasonable explanation for everything.
I have become comfortable in this space, believing that rather than gossamer spirits that survive the body, there is space that people occupy in the universe while they are alive that sometimes retains the shape of them when they’re gone. Dogged research can find this space, but luck, perhaps even fate, seems to play a role.
There are just too many coincidences. As my colleague Sharon often reminds me, “some people want to be found.” Perhaps this is our brain’s complex analysis of the way that people saved certain things. Perhaps this is an experience of deep grief or joy that became imprinted into a family system, a subconscious inheritance.
Etching of Caroline Elizabeth (Wilde) Cushing (1802-1832)
In the parlor of the Cushing House there is a cabinet, unassuming at first glance.
It was made by (or for) Caleb Cushing after the death of his wife, Caroline Elizabeth (Wilde) Cushing, who died at thirty years old. Cushing never remarried and had no children, and this cabinet contained all the mementos of what was, by most accounts, the great and only love of his life.
It holds her diaries, handkerchiefs, fans, calling cards, her portrait, necklaces, pens, all arranged in meticulous order.
I have a physical reaction to this cabinet.
My throat tightens, my skin goes cold, other senses are heightened. The cabinet is designed to keep this beloved woman alive in some way, to preserve her memory. It is heartbreaking and intimate. There is no ectoplasm, no vapor, but it is haunted nonetheless by the curated grief of her husband.
I taught an evening history class at a local high school several years ago. We were using a late 18th century house, about to be substantially renovated, as a classroom and the subject of our study. All planning permissions had been granted, all reviews complete, so there was no bar to the work. The house was worn, chopped up, confusing and dark. It had lived many lives, and it was my job to lead the students through an exploration of who and how and why.
The parade of sweat-panted teenagers, chewing on their hoodie strings, wandered inside the dark hall, a little grossed out and confused (except the one – there’s always one – who thought it was the coolest thing she had ever seen). One girl exclaimed, “this place is so haunted.” Another jumped when we rounded the corner into the dark kitchen. “Something moved!” she shrieked. A young man bravely offered “I’ll bet tons of people were murdered here.” I sighed, the house sighed, and then we got to work. We looked at nails, four different generations of nail heads in one room.
We examined a set kettle, a huge iron bowl with a firebox underneath, a massive technological advancement that allowed quantities of hot water to be available on demand (sort of – you still had to make a fire and wait). We pulled mouse nests apart and read half-shredded missionary tracts. We did a deep dive into the life of the builder and first owner of the house, Lemuel Noyes. We found his name on receipts for supplies for the Newbury men fighting with George Washington. I dragged in Revolutionary War specialists who deciphered receipts and preservation carpenters who taught the students to “see” the tool that made a mark on a board. Pit saws, adz, hand planes and chisels revealed themselves. We found bottles and pottery sherds in a space that once held an attached privy. We found the birth record of Lemuel’s wife, Sarah (Brown) Noyes, noted that their youngest son, his father’s namesake, died at age two, and explored her family’s involvement in the Salem Witch Trials.
Lemuel Noyes House, circa1783, Byfield, Mass.
One night, near the end of the semester, I arranged for a special field trip. It was dark, late October, and a full moon. The students brought flashlights and sturdy shoes and then were somewhat surprised to find that we were going out for ice cream. Thus fortified, we made our way back to the Byfield Burying Ground and tramped through the leaves to stand at the grave of Lemuel and Sarah Noyes. Flashlights (okay, iPhones) were trained en masse on the stone, its inscription read in hushed tones. Not one student suggested the place was “haunted.” They were visiting someone they knew.
I get the thrill of believing in semi-sheer apparitions floating down the hall. I really do. For most of us, it is impossible to imagine that we disappear entirely from the world when we die. Energy, spirit, soul, whatever you call it, surely remains? Maybe it does. Who am I to say?
What I know for sure, however, is that love, grief, and hope remain, and the greatest of these is love. And this is why I can introduce you to the spirit of Caroline Cushing.
Just open the cabinet.
The cabinet in its unassuming corner.
Amelia and Robert Asplund in 2010 when they presented Caroline Cushing's memento mori to the museum. Amelia is a collateral descendant of Caroline Wilde Cushing.
Letters and other treasures in Caroline's cabinet. All images from the collections of the Museum of Old Newbury.