By Carol Goodman Kaufman / Special to the BJV
About ten years ago, while doing research for an article on the Jewish history of Pittsfield, I happened upon an article detailing a most unusual find that has connected two places I’ve called home for the majority of my life: Pittsfield and Worcester.
Back in 1815, it was reported that a boy, clearing his employer’s Fort Hill yard of rubbish, dug up a set of tefillin. Ensuing press coverage about the find caused quite a stir across the country, and clergy and scholars flocked to Pittsfield to examine the parchment scrolls enclosed in their leather boxes. At that time, many people believed that Indians were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The next “logical” step in their thought process was that the tefillin had been dropped by an ancient Israelite who had traveled across the Bering Strait or by boat across the Atlantic and thus establishing the Native American nations. (How they got all the way to the Bering Strait from the Land of Israel nobody explains.) But we were ten tribes, after all, and knowing how we Jews love to argue…er, discuss…expanding from ten Jewish tribes to 574 federally-recognized Native American tribes wouldn’t be a stretch, right? (The old joke about the desert island and the two synagogues comes to mind here.)
An article with the Agatha Christie-ish title “The Case of the Missing Philactery” by William N. Goetzmann reports that among the many clergymen who flocked to Merrick’s home was Sylvester Larned, a young and not-yet-ordained Presbyterian minister. Larned was not trained In Hebrew, so he brought them to Pastor William Allen at the Congregational Church on Park Square. Allen confirmed that these were indeed Hebrew scrolls containing four passages from the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy.
Larned then obtained permission from Allen to send the tefillin to one Dr. Abiel Holmes in Cambridge, a scholar of ancient Hebrew. Goetzmann writes that there is no evidence that Holmes ever commented on the find, but Holmes then brought the tefillin to the American Antiquarian Society* in Worcester, founded by Revolutionary War newspaper publisher, Isaiah Thomas — on condition that the scholars there publish an article about them in their annual report. The AAS failed to produce one, so Goetzmann reports that Larned then sent them to a New Jersey scholar and supporter of Indian causes, Elias Boudinot. Upon Boudinot’s death, his heirs donated his papers to the Pennsylvania Historical Society, but according to historian Lee Friedman, the tefillin were not among them.
Goetzmann writes that the tefillin have not been seen since.
And then one day, while burrowing down another rabbit hole, I found them. The tefillin sit in a display case at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, complete with descriptive labels written in Isaiah Thomas’s own hand.
How did the tefillin get from the AAS to the Peabody? I decided to go old-school and picked up the telephone to call to our friend Scott Casper, the AAS President (and member of our Hadassah book club). Scott had a perfectly logical explanation. Toward the end of the 19th century, the AAS decided to deaccession artifacts to focus entirely on the printed word. Because the tefillin were considered Indian relics, they were sent along with all other Native American pieces in the collection to the Peabody.
Mystery solved! Well, not really. No Jews lived in Pittsfield until decades later. So, how did the tefillin come to end up in a trash pile on Fort Hill? While researching the history of my hometown, I discovered that Pittsfield was the site of the largest prisoner of war camp during the War of 1812 — situated on the Common where I grew up ice skating. The camp’s commandant was Thomas Melvill (uncle of Herman, and yes, there was no “e” on the name at the time). Melvill was an extraordinarily enlightened man who allowed internees to work outside the camp on the condition that they would return at night, trusting them to keep their word. Now, the British army did not allow Jews to serve, but the Royal Navy did and even promoted some of them.
I am not alone in believing that the tefillin belonged to a Jewish POW, but how they ended up in a trash pile has impelled me to start writing a new book, a work of historical fiction. I can’t wait to finish it and see how it ends!
Image: The tefillin, with scrolls removed, at the Peabody Museum. The writing on the case reads: “A Jewish frontlet found in a farmer’s yard in Pittsfield, May 1815,” and lists the biblical passages written on the parchment. Courtesy of the Peabody Museum.
* Since its founding in 1812 by Revolutionary War patriot and printer Isaiah Thomas, AAS has assembled what is today the world’s largest and most accessible collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, children's literature, music, and graphic arts material printed before the twentieth century in what is now the United States. The library of over four million items also includes a substantial collection of secondary texts, bibliographies, digital resources, and reference works. AAS is also a learned society with over 1,200 members, who are elected based on distinctive achievement in academic or public life. The Society was presented with the 2013 National Humanities Medal by President Obama in a White House ceremony. (from the AAS website)
The AAS has a significant collection of Jewish materials related to American Jewish history and culture, from the early days of Jewish settlement in the United States to the mid-19th century. Come to Worcester and we’ll have lunch!
Carol Goodman Kaufman, has just published her second mystery book, Crak, Bam, Dead: Mah Jong Mayhem (Next Chapter Press). The collection of cozy mystery short stories features food writer/aspiring investigative reporter Kiki Coben and her Mah Jong group as they follow clues from a “Black Widow” murder at sea to a suspicious death at a senior home charity event. Armed with a curious mind and her formidable group of friends, Kiki is ready to prove that the only thing you need to catch a killer is persistence – and maybe just a little bit of luck.
Crak, Bam, Dead is is available in stores and online.