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a blog by Bethany Groff Dorau, Executive Director On June 19th, 2020, a group of demonstrators in Washington D.C. marked Juneteenth, a commemoration of the end of slavery in America, by tearing down the only statue of a Confederate general ever erected in the nation’s capital. George Floyd had been

The Fall of Newburyport's Confederate Albert Pike: Part One Jun 23 Written By Museum of Old Newbury a blog by Bethany Groff Dorau, Executive DirectorOn June 19th, 2020, a group of demonstrators in Washington D.C. marked Juneteenth, a commemoration of the end of slavery in America, by tearing down the only statue of a Confederate general ever erected in the nation’s capital. George Floyd had been killed three weeks before, sparking protests around the nation and across the world. And so, drenching General Albert Pike, all 11 bronze feet of him, with lighter fluid, they set him ablaze. District police watched the crowd from a distance, intervening only to extinguish the flames. An irate President Donald Trump tweeted, “the DC police are not doing their job as they watched a statue be ripped down and burn. These people should be immediately arrested. A disgrace to our Country!” The protesters read the tweet into a megaphone and cheered as the spray-painted remains of Newburyport’s own Albert Pike smoldered in pieces on the ground. Albert Pike’s Washington, D.C. statue was pulled down by protesters on Juneteenth, 2020. Credit: Sky News There is a reason this is a blog and not the lead story in this newsletter. I cannot, nor would I wish to be, a dispassionate observer in the story of this hate-fueled man. But as much as I may wish otherwise, he was once an integral part of this community and my distant cousin. And so, Albert Pike, Confederate general, accused murderer and thief, author of the Confederate battle lyrics for “Dixie”, and founding member of the Ku Klux Klan, serves as a cautionary tale. He is a reminder that right here in William Lloyd Garrison’s backyard, Newburyport also bred, fed, and funded enslavers and human traffickers. Albert Pike, c. 1865. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery Albert Pike was born in Boston in 1809, the son of Benjamin Pike, a shoemaker, and Sarah (Andrews) Pike, both born and raised, as were generations before them, in Newbury(port). He was descended from dozens of Newbury's English settler families - the Coffins, Littles, Moodys, and yes, the Poores. The family moved back home from Boston when Albert was four, and after attending Newburyport schools, he tested for Harvard at age 14 and passed. This is one of the many moments in Pike’s life that was re-written later by his many admirers. A 1957 article in the Newburyport Daily News said he “entered Harvard but did not complete his course”, while a 1938 article in the News claimed that Pike was “graduated at Harvard as one of the famous class of 1829”.Nonsense. Pike did not go to Harvard because he could not afford the tuition, which is nothing shameful, but seemed to have stoked some resentment that eventually hastened his departure from New England, and his sense that dark forces were aligned against him.At 15, Pike became a schoolteacher, first in Gloucester and Rockport and then, in 1826, he returned to Newburyport where he decided to give himself the equivalent of a Harvard education while teaching school in Newburyport and join his class at Harvard as a junior in the fall of 1827. This plan also failed, as Harvard was not interested in admitting a self-taught Albert Pike who would pay for only the last two years of his education. And so, Albert Pike angrily abandoned Harvard and became a teacher, then principal, at the Newburyport Grammar School. He was removed by the trustees in the fall of 1828 for “unbecoming conduct” and went to Fairhaven to teach for a term. Back in Newburyport in 1829, the year when he did not graduate from Harvard, he had a new venture. “In the course of a month I wish to open a private School in this town—if a sufficient number of Scholars be obtained before that time to warrant the undertaking—for instruction in the studies commonly taught in High Schools and Academies, the price of tuition will be five dollars per term.” From the Newburyport Herald, August 28, 1829. Albert Pike taught on Pleasant Street, on Green Street, boys and girls, day and night. He learned Spanish, likely from Senor Juan de Escobar, who had a school just a few doors down on Pleasant Street. During the day he helped his father mend shoes and wrote romantic poetry. The “hall” where Albert Pike offered his school was the Masonic Hall on Green Street (not the present building), which foreshadowed his later leadership in the Freemasons. Two years later, dissatisfied with the life of a private tutor, Pike decided to seek his fortune out west, travelling first to Nashville and then on to Missouri and New Mexico before settling in Arkansas where he wrote for, and then purchased the local newspaper, taught school, married an heiress, and set himself up as a self-taught lawyer. In 1833, before setting up his law practice, Albert Pike offered translation services in Arkansas. He was a very successful lawyer, despite his lack of college education, and represented several Native American plaintiffs in suits against the governm...

Museum of Old Newbury: The Fall of Newburyport's Confederate Albert Pike: Part One