The First National Bank of the United States charter was let lapse in 1811. The bank Alexander Hamilton fought for proved to be only a boon for the British. For they might of lost the Revolutionary War, Hamilton sold 70% of our treasury to them in shares of our new national bank. Which is the reason the bank was let to dissolve as its charter expired. In the same year of the closing of the Old Witch Gaol, the groundbreaking of the new prison, and the second Witchcraft Hysteria agents of Britain entered Salem and bribed Thomas H. Perkins, Senator Nathaniel Silsbee, the head of the Massachusetts Whig Party Stephen White, Senator Daniel Webster, Associate Superior Court Justice Joseph Story, and Joseph White to restore a new national bank so England can control our treasury once more. All of these men will erect or build new mansions that year.
The Rothschilds proclaimed that their investments in the First National Bank of the United States to be restored or they would bring us to a most disastrous war to force us to create a new national bank to handle the war debt, in which they did. A year after the bank’s closure the War of 1812 started. After the war in 1816 we chartered the Second Bank of the United States. Silsbee, Perkins, Crowninshield, Webster and Story would join Salem’s William Gray (who served in the first bank) as directors in the new bank’s Boston branch. Story and Silsbee would be directors in the main branch in Philadelphia as well.
Below are the faces and mansions they built:
The Second Bank of the United States would lose its charter in 1836. In 1833 Stephen White was visited by President Jackson at his home off the Common during the Bank Wars. Jackson visited the banker behind Webster, the country’s most powerful senator, and explained to him he was to lose his shares in the bank when the charter lapsed in 1836 because once again the British had over 70% of the shares in the bank. Soon after leaving White’s house he would suffer a failed assassination attempt in name of saving the bank. Secretary of State James Knox Polk would survive a typhoid poisoning, but will later succumb to a similar poisoning 3 months after leaving the White House. Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Stephen White would later promote William Harrison for president and poison him by typhoid a month into office for refusing to create a third national bank. Stephen White will die a few months afterward leaving Clay and Webster to poison Polk and once again raise another to president to create the third bank and poison him when he refuses. Zachary Taylor, the only Whig president after Harrison, will die 16 months into office of typhoid. During his successor Millard Fillmore’s term Webster and Clay will both die in 1852 without ever seeing a third national bank created. The Whig Party that Clay, White, and Webster created to build the third national bank will fold after their deaths.
To find out more about our nation’s banking history, how the Federal Reserve works, and the presidential assassinations in hope of creating a third national bank read Sub Rosa. Advance Reader Copies available on Amazon.com and a Jolie Tea in Salem MA
Enjoy reading over a cup of tea at Jolie Tea in Salem, MA. They are the first shop to sell these ARCs. What is even more amazing than their 200+ collection of fine teas, is that the building they are in is connected to the tunnels of Salem. Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Crowninshield had his Merchant Bank in the building. He also was one of many politicians from Salem who was a director of the Second Bank of the United States Boston Branch. Crowninshield was one of many in Salem in 1811 that was bribed by the British to work to create the bank which would sell 70% of its shares to the British after the War of 1812. Across the Common you can also see Senator Nathaniel Silsbee’s house who also was bribed and became a director in the bank. In this building Sophia Peabody had lived for a period of time when Nathaniel Hawthorne lived down the street. Hawthorne’s uncle had a stagecoach company with offices in the building or next door.
As rich as the tea at Jolie is the history connected to the building. Looking over your tea cup you can see through the window the Salem Common that was developed to hide massive amounts of tunnel dirt in. It is the same location the first National Guard unit was formed on. Their descendants dug the tunnels and hid the dirt. Just to the left is the historic Hawthorne Hotel. On that property was originally the Franklin Building owned by Thomas Perkins.
Perkins had paid Charles Bulfinch to build the Bunker Hill Monument, Mass General Hospital, Perkins School for the Blind, and India Wharf. Bulfinch was the one who designed the homes connected to the tunnels in Salem and Boston and the idea of hiding tunnel dirt in rivers, ponds, and marshland. Bulfinch would be the one who built all of the tunnels in Washington D.C. Perkins is the drug dealer who started the Forbes family off to fortune by selling opium to China. His empire was sold to Sturgis Russell who’s cousin founded Skull & Bones. William Russell will purchase property off Perkins in New Haven, Conn. to build the crypt on.
Also the window seat looks out upon the parking lot which at one time was the location of the Bently-Crowninshield House featured in H.P. Lovecraft’s Thing on the Doorstep. The story details Daniel Upton’s account of the tragedy that befell Edward Derby. Edward Derby marries a woman who becomes possessed by her dead evil father who in time possess Derby’s body after he was pushed into his wife’s body when he was in Arkham Asylum. Left for dead the wife’s body limps to Upton’s doorstep informing him that it was in fact Derby who inhabits his wife’s decaying body as he becomes the thing on the doorstep. Arkham Asylum is the same asylum that the Batman universe uses. The Bently-Crowninshield House has since been removed to in front of the Hawthorne.
Now the window behind you over looks the holy parking lot. Once the location of a Jewish temple. So if you are ever chased by any of Salem’s vampires. A variety called psychic vampires. The type of person who can speak at you for an hour and drain your soul and time away. If you are ever confronted in Salem, MA, it is good to know where the consecrated land is…
Below are images of Benjamin Crowninshield, Thomas Perkins, Jolie Tea Building, Merchant Bank notes, and the tunnels….
So head over to Jolie Tea and experience some history from your window seat over one of the 200+ teas they offer. They also sell Howqua Tea named after the man that Perkins made the wealthiest man in the world by selling his opium to. Your welcome to read a store copy of Salem Secret Underground:The History of the Tunnels in the City or its sequel Sub Rosa while at Jolie or buy a copy to bring home with you! They are both filled with the story of the tunnels in Salem and how her smugglers’ shaped American history…
Recently on the PEM expansion they uncovered this tunnel. Originally it preexisted the Downing Block in which it was up to recently just a hallway in the basement. Originally there were previous buildings to the left and right of this tunnel. Until 3 months ago this section of tunnel was under the addition to the rear of the Downing Block (owned now by the PEM) which was the original location of the first Boys Club in the country. Now it is exposed as the addition has been demoed. A construction worker said they were preserving the iron door; but the question is, did they open up the tunnel beyond the door?
The original buildings attached to this building were rumored to be part of the Underground Railroad. In either building Runaway Slaves were welcome to stay for a respite. Also this tunnel was heated by a furnace under the left section of the Downing Block. This building is also haunted and the Salem Paranormal Convention has done investigations in the tunnels. Part of the investigation was Scott Gruenwald “the Naked Ghost Hunter”.
Now in front of the PEM to the far right they are digging a new cellar for their expansion which will be done in 2019. Once they did so, they uncovered another tunnel. This lined up with their mock quarter slotted viewer designed into the display above the Jersey Barriers. Now a front end loader and a big pile of dirt blocks our view of the tunnel. Also in front of the East India Marine Hall, paid for by Stephen White who engineered Presidents Harrison’s rise and assassination, it seemed they uncovered another tunnel. Within the next year they will be reopening a tunnel that had once led from the Essex Institute to the Armory where they house many of their collections. In that collection are Romanov Crown Jewels, possibly acquired by a member of the Crane plumbing empire when he was Minister to Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. The jewels might be right next to Blackbeard’s Skull cup…
So what is the PEM hiding?
To find out more read Salem Secret Underground:The History of the Tunnels in the City which is available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, and local shops in Salem, MA for all you tourists and locals alike. Also you can get an advance reader collectible edition of its sequel Sub Rosa on Amazon.com. Later its official release will be sold at Barnes & Nobe on July 4th 2017.
My friend Carol Perry has just completed another of her “Witch City Mystery” series. The new one is Grave Errors set inside of Salem on Nov 1st, the Day of the Dead when Salem truly turns into a ghost town. She has graced my family with having characters named after our surname (I hope their good characters). So check out Grave Errors and the other books in the “Witch City Mystery” series which is largely set within Daniel Lowe’s.
One book featured the tunnels she read about in Salem Secret Underground. I wonder if the tunnels return in this book… She even beat Janet Evanovich in using the book on the tunnels in her mystery series. Evanovich used my research in Wicked Charms set in Salem and Marblehead. Check Carol’s series out now, and then be all caught up when Grave Errors is released!
Here is Carol mentioning me in the Acknowledgements:
Check out Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City and find out where all the mystery writers are getting their secrets from!
Available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, and various local shops in Salem, MA!
Just watched an episode of the Librarians on TNT and they were citing source material also from Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City in Season 3 episode 1 “And the Rise of Chaos”. In the episode they enter a basement and mention smugglers building tunnels in Boston to avoid Jefferson’s taxes. Which is the reason stated in Salem Secret Underground why the tunnels were extended and the ponds in the common was filled to hide the dirt. Cool huh…..
Why not read the book Hollywood is reading and find out about the secrets in Salem and how it shaped American history!
Available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, and local shops in Salem, MA!