Alchemy and Alchemical Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century New England A thesis presented by ...

97 Pages·2011·0.25 MB·English

Alchemy and Alchemical Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century New England

A thesis presented

by

Frederick Kyle Satterstrom

to

The Department of the History of Science
in partial fulfillment
for an honors degree in Chemistry & Physics and History & Science

Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 2004

Abstract and Keywords

Abstract
By focusing on Gershom Bulkeley, John Winthrop, Jr., and other practitioners of
alchemy in seventeenth-century New England, I argue that the colonies were home to a
vibrant community of alchemical practitioners for whom alchemy significantly
overlapped with medicine. These learned men drew from a long historical tradition of
alchemical thought, both in the form of scholastic matter theory and also their
contemporaries’ works. Knowledge of alchemy was transmitted from England to the
colonies and back across a complex network of strong and weak personal connections.
Alchemical thought pervaded the intellectual landscape of the seventeenth century, and
an understanding of New England’s alchemical practitioners and their practices will fill a
gap in the current history of alchemy.

Keywords
Alchemy
Gershom Bulkeley
Iatrochemistry
Knowledge transmission
Medicine
New England
Seventeenth century
i

Acknowledgements

I owe thanks to my advisor Elly Truitt, who is at least as responsible for the
existence of this work as I am; to Bill Newman, for taking the time to meet with me while
in Cambridge and pointing out Gershom Bulkeley as a possible figure of study; to John
Murdoch, for arranging the meeting; to the helpful staff of the Harvard University
Archives; to Peter J. Knapp and the kind librarians at Watkinson Library, Trinity College,
Hartford, Connecticut; and to the staff of the Hartford Medical Society, for letting me use
their manuscript collection and for offering me food.
iii

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1
Historiography ....................................................................................................................................... 3
CHAPTER 1: ALCHEMY IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES ............. 13
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 13
Paracelsus and Iatrochemistry ............................................................................................................ 14
John Winthrop ..................................................................................................................................... 17
John Allin ............................................................................................................................................. 19
George Starkey .................................................................................................................................... 21
Gershom Bulkeley ................................................................................................................................ 22
Bulkeley’s Vade Mecum ....................................................................................................................... 27
CHAPTER 2: COLONIAL ALCHEMISTS IN CONTEXT ........................... 35
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 35
Physics at Harvard in the Mid-Seventeenth Century ........................................................................... 35
Leonard Hoar, Alchemical Visionary .................................................................................................. 41
Charles Morton and Harvard Curriculum ........................................................................................... 46
Morton’s Compendium Physicae ......................................................................................................... 47
CHAPTER 3: THE TRANSMISSION OF ALCHEMICAL KNOWLEDGE
IN THE 17TH CENTURY ..................................................................................... 53
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 53
The Formation of Scientific Knowledge............................................................................................... 53
Networks and Intelligencers ................................................................................................................ 57
Intelligencer as Model for the Colonies ............................................................................................... 61
Bulkeley as Important Node ................................................................................................................. 63
Connection to Chauncy ........................................................................................................................ 67
The Chauncy Family ............................................................................................................................ 69
CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 71
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................... 73
Primary Sources .................................................................................................................................. 73
Secondary Sources ............................................................................................................................... 77

v

Introduction

Alchemy is familiar to many through the book Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone. The story portrays the Stone as a magical item sought by the evil
Lord Voldemort for its capacity to generate unlimited quantities of gold and infinitely
prolong life.1 In this context, similar to its depiction in many other works of popular
culture, alchemy is a dark and mystical practice. Although entertaining as fiction, such a
picture is dangerous – the casual reader may be led to place the whole of alchemical
history under this modern stereotype. The stereotype is a great misconception, for any
attempt to sum up alchemy in one idea, or as one static entity, will necessarily overlook
its rich and nuanced history.
Alchemy was far from static over its lifespan of several millennia. To gain an
understanding of it, we must consider individual time periods. The focus of this work is
seventeenth-century New England, where the practice of alchemy significantly
overlapped with medicine. Examining individual practitioners reveals that alchemy
meant different things even to those practitioners who were in close communication with
one another, depending on which alchemical texts they chose to work from. This
pragmatic character of alchemy, with its focus on the preparation of chemical medicines,
is far different from the magic found in popular stories like Harry Potter.
I have focused on four alchemical practitioners to help illuminate the intellectual
activity of alchemists in the New England colonies. John Winthrop, Jr., spent significant
time in the colonies and was taken quite seriously in alchemical matters. John Allin

1 J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (London: Bloomsbury, 1997). The ostensibly
less knowledgeable American audience received Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
1
exhibited a considerable degree of interest in alchemical medicines, and George Starkey
stands out for his influence on prominent English practitioners of the art. Gershom
Bulkeley, meanwhile, shows that even a colonial doctor in the seeming backwater of
seventeenth-century Connecticut could attain a comprehensive knowledge of alchemical
matters. He felt sufficient mastery of the subject to put forth his own written work of
natural philosophy and chemical preparations. Taken together, these men prove that the
colonies were a vibrant, active community of alchemists who were familiar with current
alchemical literature as well as alchemical practice.
This lively community of alchemists drew from, and fit within, a larger context of
alchemical tradition. During their time at Harvard, men such as Allin, Starkey, and
Bulkeley were exposed via scholastic physics to elements of the same matter theory that
lay beneath seventeenth-century theories of alchemy. The alchemical practice resulting
from such theories was within reach for many private practitioners with their own
chemical libraries and experimental apparatus – although not for Harvard President
Leonard Hoar, whose alchemical vision for the College never came to pass. When
Charles Morton and his natural philosophy arrived in Massachusetts, though, Harvard
students finally attained an explicitly alchemical facet of their education to better ground
them in alchemical tradition.
New England’s community of alchemists was also constantly sharing
information,2 and I posit a model for the transmission of alchemical knowledge in the
seventeenth century. Knowledge came to be accepted through social factors such as

2 Typical notions of alchemical secrecy apply mainly to preventing knowledge from falling into the hands
of non-alchemists rather than any prohibition of sharing knowledge with a fellow alchemist. In this way,
alchemical knowledge has been likened to trade secrets; see Lawrence M. Principe, “Apparatus and
Reproducibility in Alchemy,” in Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry, ed. Frederic
L. Holmes and Trevor H. Levere (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), 58.
2