The New England Sources of "My Kinsman, Major Molineux"

Abstract

N I959 Charles Ryskamp marveled regarding Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter the American sources for the factual background of his most famous novel have been largely unnoticed. The wonder is equally great, if not greater, that today-more than twenty years later-the New England sources of one of his best-known tales, My Kinsman, Molineux, remain for the most part unexplored. Further, it is an irony of Hawthorne scholarship that an important historical source for his greatest novel should so long have been largely overlooked as also an important source of Major Molineux. Of Dr. Caleb H. Snow's History of Boston, Ryskamp remarked: As would seem only natural, Hawthorne used the most creditable history of Boston available to him at that time, and one which is still an important source for the identification of houses of the early settlers and for landmarks in the city.1 The irony of this oversight is augmented by the fact that the only times when Hawthorne is known to have had access to the book were in I827 and I829, at or near the time he must have written Major Molineux and long before he conceived The Scarlet Letter.2 In My Kinsman, Molineux, Hawthorne incorporated material from Snow and other New England sources to create an authentic background to help his readers willingly suspend their disbelief and accept his imaginative story as though it were real. This assistance is necessary in a story that does not record an authentic incident from New England's history but interprets that history. In addition to historical and topographical facts used or alluded to in