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Norumbega | Jacob Signorovitch |
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In Weston, Massachusetts, across the Charles River from Brandeis University, an unusual structure rises between the trees; a forty foot stone tower, complete with spiral staircase and ramparts, weathered and stained with time, looking distinctly out of place within earshot of I-95. The story of how it came to be involves Vikings, a baking soda magnate, the discovery of America, and at the center of it all is the myth of Norumbega. As one explores the area, the name comes up again and again; a map will tell you the structure's name is Norumbega Tower, and running alongside is Norumbega Road. Further south, one finds a Norumbega Park, and another road called Norumbega Court. This paper will explore how one man in the late 19th century, Eben Norton Horsford, brought together two seemingly disconnected ideas into a theory for the original discovery of America, what motivated him to do so, and what he left behind.
The myth of Norumbega originated during the Age of Exploration. It was variously a town, city, or country, somewhere along the coast of New England, inhabited by amiable and civilized natives. First given the name Nurumberg by Giacomo Gastaldi in a 1548 edition of Ptolemy's Geography,[@KirsNor98, 34] the myth can be traced back to a conflation of two separate accounts. The first is that of Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer under King Francis I of France.[@GreeneLife37, 4-7] He was one of the first Europeans to explore the area around Narragansett Bay in 1524[@KirsNor98, 36, 39], far distant from where Norumbega would eventual be described. However, due to geographical ambiguity at the time, his account would later become "at the heard of the Norumbega legend."[@KirsNor98, 39] He recounted his experiences in a letter to the king, where he described a pleasant harbor inhabited by friendly and civil natives.[@KirsNor98, 39] They practiced "more systematic cultivation [of crops] than the other tribes," and were "very like the manner of the ancients."[@KirsNor98, 39] In the letter, Giovanni names the place refugio, "on account of its beauty."[@KirsNor98, 39] Civilized inhabitants became one of the core aspects of the myth, present throughout its evolution even as its exact location and size varied. The second account is that of Jean Alfonce de Saintonge, pilot on Jacques Cartier's exploration of the Penobscot Bay area [KirsNor98, 41]. Sailing up the Penobscot River, which he called the Norenbègue, he described "a city called Norombegue with clever inhabitants [...] The people use many words which sound like Latin and worship the sun, and they are fair people and tall."[KirsNor98, 41] These two accounts, Giovanni s refugio and Saintonge's Norombegue, eventually merged into a single myth, canonized by Gastaldi, of an advanced Native American city whose manners were closer to those of Europe than their neighbors.[@KirsNor98, 41]
Eben Norton Horsford was a chemist working in Cambridge, best known for his invention of modern baking powder.[@JackHors92, 343] In addition to his work, he showed some interest in history and archaeology throughout his life. He would collect fossils around his father's farm in Moscow (now Leister), New York where he grew up,[@JackHors92, 340] and expressed interest in learning the language of the Seneca Indians[@JackHors92, 340], to which his father worked as a missionary.[@JackHors92, 103] Later, he would often visit his wife's family estate on Shelter Island, New York.[@AdamsMemBiog08, 104] There, he became interested in the island's history and "erected a monument to the Quakers, who found shelter there from Puritan persecution."[@AdamsMemBiog08, 104] He would later repeat this pattern of investigation and monument building in Massachusetts.
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