Happy Halloween: Spooky Blog Roundup!

Happy Halloween from the State Library! To say our librarians are enthusiastic about all things spooky, paranormal, and odd would be an understatement. We love a good Massachusetts legend from folklore to cryptids, check out some of our past blog posts to get you into the Halloween Spirit!

• On Display in the State Library: The Witches of Dogtown - Learn about the lore of Dogtown, an abandoned village in Gloucester.

• Dighton Rock and its Portuguese-American Legacy - A good mystery for this time of year, the Dighton Rock and its engravings still puzzle scholars to this day.

• For the true crime fans check out True Crime Resources and the Borden Murder Trial and Jolly Jane Toppan, Massachusetts’ Victorian Era Serial Killer.

• A Woman of the Witch Trials: The Story of Elizabeth Howe - It wouldn’t be spooky season in Massachusetts without mention of the Salem witch trials!

• Read about the Nantucket Merman and New England Vampire Panic - courtesy of our Government Documents Librarian!

• Learn about the Spiritualism movement and spirit writing in Massachusetts - The Spirit(ualism) of Massachusetts and John Quincy Adams from Beyond the Veil.

Search our catalog for more legends and mysteries! We just added some new horror titles to the general reading collection. Also be sure to check out Libby, the Reading App - available to State Employees for ebooks and audiobooks.

April Pascucci
Legislative Reference Librarian

Jolly Jane Toppan, Massachusetts’ Victorian Era Serial Killer

In keeping with the macabre mood of the Halloween season, this week’s blog revisits a subject from 2017: Jolly Jane Toppan, lifelong Massachusetts resident and first known woman serial killer in the United States.

From 1885 to 1901, Jane Toppan made her way from hospital to hospital, household to household, killing unsuspecting victims who hired her as a nurse based on excellent referrals. Toppan injected patients with lethal doses of morphine and atropine, having years of experimentation under her belt which started during her residency at Cambridge Hospital. 12 of Toppan’s victims are known and identified; however, she confessed to murdering 31 people and is suspected of claiming the lives of 70 or more people in total.

She finally came under suspicion and was apprehended in 1901 after killing an entire family of four in Barnstable County, one by one, over the course of five weeks. In June of 1902, Toppan was brought before the Barnstable Superior Court on the charge of murdering Mary D. Gibbs, one member of the family and Toppan’s last victim. Toppan was quickly found not guilty by reason of insanity. She was sentenced to an asylum in Taunton where she died in 1938 at age 84.

The transcript from the trial of Jane Toppan in the murder of Mary D. Gibbs, Commonwealth vs. Jane Toppan, can be found in our digital collections.

Alyssa Persson
Processing Archivist

Above portrait image: From the Boston Post, November 3, 1901. Image courtesy of Lowell Historical Society.

Mobile Printing is a Cinch … well, Princh … at the State Library of Massachusetts!

With our new Princh printing solution, you can now print easily and securely from your phone, tablet, or laptop using our remote printing service. Whether you’re at home or in the State Library, you can send print jobs from any location at any time. Simply pay at our print release terminal and print to our printer the same day during the State Library’s regular hours, Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. No downloads or apps needed!

State Library patrons will need to make a one-time purchase of a copy card for $1.00 and add funds to print. This card is yours to keep and reuse. Printing prices are the same whether you use the library’s computers or your own device: $0.20 per page for black and white and $0.50 per page for color prints. When using the Mobile Print service, your login for the print release terminal will be your email address.

Printing from your mobile phone or a tablet

1. When printing at the library: easily locate the print guide poster near the printer and simply scan the QR code to get started. Scanning the QR code will automatically select the State Library’s printer.
2. OR When printing remotely: open your browser, go to print.princh.com and enter the 6-digit printer ID 109905 to select the State Library’s printer.
3. Upload your document(s).
4. Adjust the settings.
5. Enter your email address. Go to the print release terminal to pay for and finalize your print job.

Printing from your laptop

1. When printing remotely or at the library: open your browser, go to print.princh.com and enter the 6-digit printer ID 109905 to select the State Library’s printer.
2. Upload your document(s).
3. Adjust the settings.
4. Enter your email address.
5. Go to the print release terminal to pay for and finalize your print job.

If you need help, just ask at the Reference Desk! Our Reference Librarians are here to assist you.

Judy Carlstrom
Head of Technical Services

Author Talk with Linda Coombs

• Colonization and the Wampanoag Story
• Wednesday, October 30, 2024. 12pm - 1:00pm
• In-person and Virtual event. No registration required.
• State Library of Massachusetts - Room 341, Massachusetts State House
• Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/user/mastatelibrary

The State Library of Massachusetts Author Talks Series is hosting author Linda Coombs this October! Please join us on Wednesday, October 30th, at noon, in our historic reading room to hear Coombs discuss her book, Colonization and the Wampanoag Story (2023), a young adult story that is part of the ‘Race to the Truth’ series.

The event will be livestreamed on our YouTube channel courtesy of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Broadcast Services - tune in at noon!

Be sure to sign up for our Author Talks newsletter and follow our social media channels (Instagram, Facebook, and X) for the latest information on our visiting authors.

About the book: Colonization and the Wampanoag Story is an educational tool geared towards young readers. Combining storytelling and historical facts, Coombs provides an accessible history of the Indigenous peoples of New England. Focusing on the Wampanoag and their experience with the First European settlers, the book chapters switch between the narrative of a young Wampanoag girl, entitled “When Life Was our Own” and chapters explaining the history, events, and colonization of Southern New England Tribes.

About the author: Linda Coombs is an author, historian, museum curator, and member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah. Coombs worked 30 years for the Wampanoag Indigenous Program (WIP) of Plimoth Plantation - 15 years as Associate Director and served 9 years as Program Director for the Aquinnah Cultural Center. Based in Mashpee, Linda continues to write and educate on Native American history and experience.

If you join us in person for this talk, attendees will be able to participate in a question-and-answer session with the author as well as purchase a copy of the book. Cash or check accepted.

As always, this author talk is free and open to all. Assisted listening devices will be made available upon request. Any questions or concerns, please email us at AuthorTalks.StateLibrary@mass.gov.

For more information on the State Library Author talks series, please visit our site.



Author Talks Working Group

A Vulture Lurks in the Library . . .

This October, the California Vulture (plate 426) perches in the library! The Audubon Society describes this rare bird as huge and notes that it was headed towards extinction in the 1980s, before efforts were undertaken to breed it in captivity for later release into the wild. The vulture shown here is described as an "old male" and their lifespan ranges from from 45 to 80 years, with an average being 60 years. 

Also known as the California Condor, this large bird is a scavenger, soaring about 2000+ feet above ground and up to 250 miles per day in pursuit of dead animals to feed on. They are recognizable by their bald heads that are pink or orange in color, along with their impressive wingspan that reaches 9.5 feet! Read more about these birds on the National Park Service website.

Visit us from October 8 through November 5 to see the vulture on display in our reading room! Each October, we try to display a bird that has a spooky connotation, so if you missed any of our previous displays, you can find them here: Raven and Crow.

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian

The New England Vampire Panic

Move over witches, there’s another hysteria-inducing superstition in town – and just in time for Halloween! We may be known for the Salem Witch Trials, but did you know that Massachusetts was part of a more recent hysteria known as the New England Vampire Panic?

The panic was caused by a health crisis that plagued New England in the 18th and 19th century (Bell, 2006, p. 124). The real culprit: consumption – i.e., tuberculosis. Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infection that can attack different parts of the body but is most well-known for wreaking havoc on the lungs (pulmonary tuberculosis), which can cause the infected person to cough blood – thanks to modern medicine, TB is both curable and preventable (Massachusetts Department of Public Health).

While a respiratory condition might not scream “vampire!” to any of us, the other symptoms of the disease such as weight-loss, fatigue, and loss of appetite align more with the mainstays of vampire lore. In lieu of a better explanation, these symptoms suggested that something was feeding on the infected person and draining them of life. 

Not everyone actually believed vampires were the cause, as you can read from this excerpt in “Analysis of a Correspondence on Some of the Causes of Antecedents of Consumption” which is part of a larger report to the Massachusetts State Board of Health in 1873:

I picked this example because it features in one of the government documents in our collection (you can view and download a copy of the full report from our Digital Repository); however, there are many more instances that occurred in other regions of New England and go into greater detail. Based on these accounts, a common course of action for eradicating vampires seems to have been to burn the organs – particularly the heart – of the suspected vampire (Bell, 2006, p. 125).

While the author of the above report clearly thinks this family’s actions were absurd, it is important to acknowledge that the larger context of this passage is in answer to whether drinking alcohol is a legitimate means of preventing the disease (spoiler: it’s not). The first TB vaccine would not be developed until 1921 and the first antibiotics to treat the disease would not be created until 1943, prior to that your only other option (if you had the resources) was to convalesce in a sanatorium and hope for the best (Division of Tuberculosis Elimination). 

You can read more about the New England Vampire Panic and tuberculosis in the source list below; however, if you prefer your vampire lore to stay in the realm of fiction, the State Library has plenty of books to keep you up at night! Because the State Library is part of the CW MARS library network, our patrons have access to hundreds of vampire-related books, eBooks, and audiobooks. Whether you’re interested in the classics or something more modern, there’s bound to be a vampire book to suit your taste.

Use our online catalog to do a subject search for “vampire” – you can access eBooks and audiobooks through the Libby app. If you need assistance setting up and navigating, we have this tutorial video to get you started.

Happy reading!


Maryellen Larkin, Government Documents & Reference Librarian

 

Sources:

Bell, M. (2006). “Vampires and Death in New England, 1784 to 1892,” Anthropology and Humanism, Vol. 31, Issue 2, pp 124–140.

Division of Tuberculosis Elimination. “History of World TB Day.” Tuberculosis (TB), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 18 Oct. 2023, www.cdc.gov/tb/worldtbday/history.htm.  

Fourth Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts, January 1873. Boston, Massachusetts: Wright & Potter. 1873. pp. 338–339.

Massachusetts Department of Public Health. “Tuberculosis.” www.mass.gov/tuberculosis.  

Muise, Peter. “The Plymouth Vampire of 1807.” New England Folklore, 11 Nov. 2021, https://newenglandfolklore.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-plymouth-vampire-of-1807.html. Accessed 2024.  

Tucker, Abigail. “The Great New England Vampire Panic.” Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Institution, 1 Oct. 2012, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-new-england-vampire-panic-36482878/.  

State Library Newsletter - October Issue

Hello October! Catch up on all State Library happenings in this month's newsletter. Read about our upcoming events, displayed items, new horror books on our shelves, and more!

Pictured here is a preview, but the full issue can be accessed by clicking here. And you can also sign up for our mailing list to receive the newsletter straight to your inbox.