The Tarbell Story

Editor’s note: Several months ago, I came upon an article someone had sent me about the amazing story of the Tarbells of Groton, Massachusettts. It was written by Rudy Bixby and was published in the November 14, 1979, issue of The Times Free Press newspaper from East Pepperell. Kate Walsh, Managing Editor for the owners at Nashoba Publishing, has graciously given permission for us to republish the Tarbell Story.

I had once written a piece for the “Did You Know” section of From the Housetops about Lydia Longley, who has the distinction of being the “First American Nun.” The Tarbells and the Longleys were contemporaries; both were from Groton; both families had children kidnapped by Indians; and, strangely enough, they were cousins. Lydia Longley was taken captive in 1694 during an Abenaki raid on their homestead in the aftermath of King Philip’s War as it played out on this side of the ocean. Lydia’s family was all killed in the raid and she was taken, eventually, to Canada, ransomed by the French, and given over to the Ursuline nuns in Montreal. While there, she became a Catholic and later joined the order.
Before moving on to the story, here are some interesting Catholic trivia concerning “saints” and “firsts” in America:
1) Lydia Longley is the first woman, born in colonial America, to become a nun. The story of Lydia Longley was first popularized by Helen A. McCarthy Sawyer of Groton, Massachusetts. She wrote a children’s book called “The First American Nun.”
2) Frances Allen, daughter of Ethan Allen, was the first woman, born after 1776 in the United States, to become a nun. She was converted while studying with teaching sisters in Montreal. In 1811, she made a religious profession with the Religious Hospitaliers of St. Joseph, and took care of the worst of the sick and indigent. She died of consumption in 1819.
3) Mother Cabrini was the first United States citizen to be canonized, although she was not a native-born American. She died in 1917.
4) The first native-born United States citizen to be canonized was Mother Seton. She died in 1821.
5) The first United States male citizen to be canonized was John Nepomucene Neumann, although he was not a native-born American.

The Tarbell Story

By Rudy Bixby

Wednesday, November 14, 1979

Times-Free Press – East Pepperell, Mass. 01437

Did you ever see a man walking calmly across a steel girder, ten stories up, or doing the same thing on a bridge girder, four or five hundred feet above a river? If you ever have, you probably wondered what sort of a man that he was. Possibly, you may have seen such a man on the ground and have been surprised that he was an Indian. If you happened to hear him called by name, you might have been more surprised to hear the name Tarbell. Well, you might think that it had nothing to do with the Tarbells of Groton and you would be very wrong! The Indian, named Tarbell, would be able to trace his ancestors back to a man named Thomas Tarbell who lived in Groton, almost three hundred years ago.
Thomas Tarbell III, was the son and grandson of original proprietors of Groton and once served as Town Clerk. His wife was the daughter of Richard and Isabel Blood and was named Elizabeth. They had ten children, born between the years 1687 and 1707. The family homestead was on Farmers Row, the present site of the James Lawrence estate.
In the early Summer of 1707, the inhabitants of Groton were beginning to feel reasonably safe from Indian attacks. The local Indians had been killed off or pacified during King Philip’s War, and King William’s War, between the French and British, which had seen an invasion by Indians from Canada, was some five years past. There were rumors that some settlers had been attacked recently but the Tarbell family didn’t feel that they were in any immediate danger. How wrong they were!
It was early evening, June 20th, three of the Tarbell children, Sarah, John and Zachariah were playing in the branches of a cherry tree behind the house when a band of Caughnawaga Indians suddenly surrounded the tree. Cautioning the children to be quiet, Indians and prisoners vanished into the nearby forest. At that time, Sarah was thirteen, John was eleven, and Zachariah was six or seven. Sarah never saw her home or family again.
Traveling swiftly, the Indians returned with their prisoners to the Indian village of Caughnawaga near the city of Montreal. Sarah was soon bought by the French and placed in a convent. In all probability, Sarah met her cousin, Lydia Longley, who had been captured by the Indians, eleven years previously. Lydia had become a nun and, no doubt, influenced her cousin to do likewise. She joined the Congregation of Notre Dame at Lachine.
And what of the two boys? They soon became as Indian as their captors. Reaching manhood, they married daughters of Indian chiefs and, later, moved up the St. Lawrence to found the Indian town of St. Regis.
Some thirty years later, John and Zachariah returned to visit relatives in Groton. Dressed as Indian chiefs and speaking haltingly in English, they attracted much attention. No amount of pleading could induce them to return permanently. Governor Belcher, the Governor of Massachusetts, made an impassionate speech before the General Court, pleading with that body to give the two Tarbells some sort of an inducement to stay in their native town. The worthy gentleman was much distressed over the fact that the two had embraced Catholicism. The free life of the forest proved too much of a magnet to the Tarbells and they returned to their squaws and families.
In the year 1744, Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts was in Albany, New York, and his attention was called to a band of Indians who had come down from Canada to trade. Two of the “Indians” turned out to be the Tarbell brothers, one of whom was said to be the wealthiest of the Caughnawaga tribe.
Sometime during the next century, Dr. Samuel Green visited the village of St. Regis and talked to the parish priest. He was informed that some forty persons carried the name of Tarbell in the village and that they were among the most prominent. Strange to say, the given names of these Tarbell descendants corresponded to names of their distant cousins in Groton.
When Thomas Tarbell III, died, he left the three missing children an equal share in his property but with the condition that they return to Groton to live. The condition was never fulfilled.
One must wonder if the three Tarbells ever regretted their choices and what would have been their lot if they had returned to live in Groton.
And how did the Tarbells become involved in the dangerous trade of building high structural steel buildings and bridges? When the first suspension bridge was built across the St. Lawrence at Quebec, the engineers were astonished by the lack of fear of height displayed by a group of Indians, among whom were some of the Tarbells. The word soon spread and Indians soon became much in demand.
Of all the stories about captured children of New England, surely the story of the Tarbell children is the most interesting.

On Cults and Man Worship, Some Fighting Words

By Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M.

In "Christology for Joe," an article that answers questions from a thoughtful young man, I made some observations about the way the English language has been Protestantized. In this number of the Ad Rem, I excerpt from that article the part explaining the words used to distinguish the "cult" of the Blessed Virgin and the saints from the "cult" of the Blessed Trinity. This knowledge may prove useful in helping readers to think through, and deal with, certain objections that come to our religion from its critics.

The Germanic language known as English — from the Angles, the Germanic tribe that invaded Celtic Britain — developed substantially under Catholic influence. St. Augustine’s missionary monks were in England in the early seventh century, introducing many Latinisms into the developing language of the British Isles. The Norman invasion in 1066 enriched its vocabulary by the introduction of many French words, and gave it another Catholic influence. Until the Anglican Schism of the sixteenth century, England was a major part of the Catholic world, and its humane letters had a place of dignity in the literature of Christendom. Chaucer was a Catholic; the Arthurian Legends were Catholic; Shakespeare was possibly Catholic himself, and if not, certainly did not “Protestantize” the language. In short, our vocabulary grew and our literature developed while Merry old England was still Mary’s Dowry. Words like lord, lady, worship, adore, and pray had meanings and connotations more deeply rooted in the Catholic culture of England.
But Protestants — not so much Anglicans as Calvinist Puritans — gradually altered the usage of these words, if not by direct effort, then by simple use.
In these United States (whose early colonists included many Puritans), there was a direct effort to divorce our language from the Mother Tongue. It was the continuation, you might say, of the War for Independence. (Noah Webster compiled his dictionary largely for this politico-ideological purpose.) American English, especially of Noah Webster’s New England variety, was more “democratic” and less “monarchical” a language; and even the aristocrats (lords and ladies) took a beating in the developing language of our Republic. Because of all this, concepts of hierarchy — Catholic concepts — were downplayed. Eventually, a bishop or magistrate was no longer “my Lord”; one did not “pray” to a judge (”prithee, milord!”); and nobody was “your worship” except God Himself. All this had the net effect of abstracting a purely religious use, sanitized of Catholic concepts, for certain words. True, some holdovers still exist in the language, as when we call a property owner who rents to us a “landlord,” or when we read older versions of Scripture, but there is a prevalent Calvinism in much of our language that serves to prejudice the American ear in religious matters. (Orestes Brownson’s provocatively entitled “Mary Worship” and “Saint Worship” may have been so named to challenge this prejudice.)
All the foregoing is background to establish that, to our Catholic (and even Anglican) English-speaking forebears, to “pray” to someone other than God, to “worship” a man, and to call upon those in the ecclesiastical and even the civic hierarchy as “lord” did not smell in the slightest of brimstone. Today, however, we have the burden of explaining to a people whose common tongue has been religiously deconstructed what these things mean.
Catholic devotion to Our Lady and the Saints never put creatures on a par with the creator. This is amply proven in numerous works of an apologetical nature (see, for instance, my own “Praying to the Saints,” under the heading “Confirmed by Tradition”). Those who claim that we Catholics give saints the same worship we give to God have the burden of proving it from Catholic sources. The total absence of a smoking gun belies the falsity of their assertions.
There exists in the Catholic theological lexicon the following fourfold distinction:
Latria (cultus latriae) — We usually call this, in English, “adoration.” This is the worship given exclusively to the Blessed Trinity. It comes from a Greek word that the Latins liked so much they imported it. When we say cultus latriae, we are saying that to God is due the “cult of latria [or "of adoration"].” The word cultus has at least three meanings: “to till or cultivate; to protect or nurture; and (in an applied sense) to worship or honor.” From it, we get the words “cultivate,” “agriculture,” “horticulture,” etc. From it also, we get the word “cult,” as in religious veneration. At Dictionary.com, one can see the different meanings of the word “cult.” This proper religious use of the word is the first listed meaning, while the popular meaning of the word is No. 6. (Knee-jerk reactions to the word “cult” — “Ah! So, you Catholics admit you’re a cult!” — would provide yet more examples of the linguistic bias I wrote of earlier.)
Dulia (cultus duliae) — Coming from the Greek word for “servant” or “slave,” this category denotes the veneration shown to the saints, God’s “servants.” In this distinction, one can see that there is a difference between the reverence shown to God and that shown to God’s slave. The honor shown to a master (in this case, the Master of all) is obviously greater than the honor shown to a slave. Clearly, the old social convention of servitude serves as the point of reference for this distinction, just as it was employed by St. Paul to illustrate other concepts in Scripture.
Hyperdulia (cultus hyperduliae) — Because the Blessed Virgin Mary is a saint, she receives the genus of veneration we call “dulia.” However, because she is over all the saints, she is given the highest species of that devotion. So, we unite hyper, the Greek word for “over,” (its Latin equivalent is super) to dulia. The Mother of God receives the highest degree of reverence of any mere creature (excepting, that is, Christ’s sacred Humanity, which is a creature; more on that in a bit).
Protodulia (cultus protoduliae) — A further distinction of some authors employs the Greek word for “first,” prôtos. This is the devotion given to St. Joseph, who is revered “first” among the saints. (But Mary is honored “over” him!)
(A more detailed explanation of the division of latria and dulia can be found in my “On Worshiping Mary and the Saints.”)

The Twelve Apparitions Between the Resurrection and Ascension

By Brian Kelly
Perusing through some old files of mine I came across a list of Catholic twelves, and there are many: Twelve Apostles; twelve articles of the Apostles Creed; twelve days of Christmas; twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost; twelve patriarchs from Adam to Noah; twelve tribes of Israel; twelve loaves of proposition in the temple sanctuary; twelve chiefs of Ismael; Jesus was twelve-years-old when He was first teaching in the temple; twelve baskets of fragments left over after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes; the Woman of the Apocalypse had a crown of twelve stars; the tree of life in the vision of the Apocalypse bore twelve fruits; and, in the natural order, we have twelve months of the year.

There was another twelve on the list that I had totally forgotten about. Our Lord appeared to His Apostles and disciples twelve times during the forty days between His resurrection and His ascension. Two of the dozen apparitions are known from tradition; the other ten are recorded in Holy Scripture.
The first apparition: Although it is not recorded in the New Testament we know from tradition (and common sense) that Jesus first appeared to His Blessed Mother alone, immediately after He rose from the dead. In fact, it was this first apparition that inspired Saint Ignatius of Loyola in writing his Spiritual Exercises. For one of his meditations in the fourth week of exercises he posits this composition of place:
“First Prelude. The first Prelude is the narrative, which is here, how, after Christ expired on the Cross, and the Body, always united with the Divinity, remained separated from the Soul, the blessed Soul, likewise united with the Divinity, went down to Hell, and taking from there the just souls, and coming to the Sepulchre, and being risen, He appeared to His Blessed Mother in Body and in Soul.
“Second Prelude. The second, a composition, seeing the place; which will be here to see the arrangement of the Holy Sepulchre and the place or house of Our Lady, looking at its parts in particular; likewise the room, the oratory, etc.” In his Spiritual Exercises Saint Ignatius also includes a list of these twelve apparitions of Christ from His resurrection to His ascension.
Regarding this, Paul Debuchy relates an interesting tradition in his article on the Spiritual Exercises for the Catholic Encyclopedia: “Another tradition concerns the part taken by the Blessed Virgin in the composing of the ‘Exercises’ at Manresa. It is not based on any written testimony of the contemporaries of St. Ignatius, though it became universal in the seventeenth century. Possibly it is founded upon earlier oral testimony, and upon a revelation made in 1600 to the Venerable Marina de Escobar and related in the ‘Life of Father Balthazar Alvarez.’ This tradition has often been symbolized by painters, who represent Ignatius writing from the Blessed Virgin’s dictation.”
That Our Lord first appeared to His mother after His resurrection is a long-established tradition and is also the subject of many great works of art. Saint Ambrose may have been the first western doctor to affirm the belief explicitly, but many others did so as well. “Mary therefore saw the Resurrection of the Lord” he writes, “She was the first who saw it and believed.” Saint Augustine taught that the only one who held firm the Faith in the resurrection of Christ during the three days from Good Friday to Easter Sunday was Mary. She was the only believing member of the Church during that triduum. Other saints that explicitly taught the same were Saints Eadmer (disciple of Saint Anselm), Bernardine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola, and Alphonsus Maria de Liguori. Actually, since no saint ever denied it (how could they?) it would be safe to say that they all took it for granted, even if they did not write about it expressly. Regarding this tradition, Saint Ignatius says: “First: He appeared to the Virgin Mary. This, although it is not said in Scripture, is included in saying that He appeared to so many others, because Scripture supposes that we have understanding, as it is written: ‘Are you also without understanding’?”
The second person to whom Our Lord appeared after His resurrection was Mary Magdalen. We have the story in the Gospel of Saint John, chapter 20, vss. 11-17. “Jesus saith to her: Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, thinking it was the gardener, saith to him: Sir, if thou hast taken him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith to her: Mary. She turning, saith to him: Rabboni (which is to say, Master). Jesus saith to her: Do not touch me, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren, and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God.”
Then, the third apparition was to the “other women” who came either with Mary Magdalen, or separately in another group, to the sepulchre just before or just after sunrise Easter morning. Three of these, the Gospel accounts tell us, were Mary of Cleophas, Salome, and Joanna. These scripture accounts from the Gospels of Saint Matthew, Mark, and Luke need an explanation in order to reconcile them with what we have just read in Saint John.
Without getting into a protracted comparison and reconstruction of the sequence of seemingly contradictory accounts I will follow the Catholic Encyclopedia article’s simple chronology of the Paschal apparitions. On the morning of the Resurrection Mary Magdalen, “the other Mary” and “other women” come to the tomb first, just before sunrise, while it was still dark. Seeing the stone rolled back, Mary immediately left and ran back to tell the Apostles. The other women are stupefied with fear when they see an angel whose countenance was “as lightning” and the guards struck with terror stiffened like “dead men.” The angel tells them not to fear for, Jesus, whom they seek, is not there, He has risen. “Come,” the angel says, “and see the place where the Lord was laid” (Matt. 28:1-6).
These women, with great fear and joy, ran back to Jerusalem, intending to tell Christ’s disciples what they had seen and heard, but they were so afraid that they said nothing to anyone (Mark 16:8). Meanwhile a second group of holy women arrived at the tomb, including Joanna, who was at the Cross. They probably intended to meet Mary Magdalen and the other women there. These women looked into the empty vault and saw two angels sitting at either end of the tomb. These two angels did not shine like lightning, but looked like men in “shining apparel.” (These were the same two angels that Mary Magdalen was about to see.) The angels told them that Christ had arisen; “he is not here,” and to go quickly and tell His disciples (Luke 24:5-8). They, then, ran back to the home, where the Apostles were staying, and on their way back, Jesus appeared to them on the road (Matt. 28:8-10). Meanwhile, Mary Magdalen had returned to the tomb alone. This is when she encountered the angel and the Risen Christ whom she thought might be the gardener. After Our Lady, she was the first to whom Christ appeared after His Resurrection: “But he rising early the first day of the week, appeared first to Mary Magdalen, out of whom he had cast seven devils” (Mark 16:9). After hearing the report of the other women, Saints Peter and John ran to the tomb and entering in found the linens folded in one place. Seeing this, John believed. Peter, however, seems to have doubted. “Then that other disciple [John] also went in, who came first to the sepulchre: and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead” (John 20:8&9).
That doubt was removed when Jesus appeared privately to him in His fourth apparition (Luke 24:34).
The fifth apparition was to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus as related in detail in Luke, chapter 24. Scripture gives us the name of only one of the two, Cleophas.
The sixth apparition was to ten of the Apostles, Thomas being absent, in the Upper Room of the Cenacle (John 20:19).
The seventh was to the Apostles again, in the same place, Thomas being present this time. “Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed” (John 20:29).
The eighth was to seven disciples on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias. The seven were: Saints Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, James the Greater, John, and two others not mentioned (John 21).
The ninth was related only by Saint Paul in First Corinthians, chapter fifteen. This was to a large multitude of five hundred on a mountain in Galilee (vs. 6).
The tenth was to Saint James the Less, whom Jesus would leave to pastor the Church in Jerusalem. This apparition is also related only by Saint Paul in the same epistle and chapter as above (vs. 7).
The eleventh apparition of Our Lord is believed by tradition and is found, according to the testimony of Saint Ignatius, in the ancient Lives of the Saints. It was to Saint Joseph of Arimathea, His pallbearer and benefactor.
Lastly, the twelfth apparition was to one hundred and twenty, the infant Church, on the Mount of Olives at His Ascension. “And he led them out as far as Bethania: and lifting up his hands, he blessed them. And it came to pass, whilst he blessed them, he departed from them, and was carried up to heaven” (Luke 24:50-51).

Email Brian Kelly at bdk@catholicism.org.