Eagle Feathers #249 – Don’t Spill Your Coffee

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

Tradition has told us that a ninth century Ethiopian shepherd once observed that some of his goats were behaving erratically. They were happier and livelier than others because they ate the magenta berries on a dark green shrub.

In nearby monastery, Brothers ground the goat herders’ red seeds into a delicious strong, black drink which aided in their concentration. The secrets of the beverage and plant were later carried to Arabia and across the Mohammedan world beyond. Its commencement in Europe was in 1607, the same century that the magic beverage was introduced to the Americas. Monks were foremost in coffee cultivation in South America. It was believed that they brought good luck to the plants. The coffee industry, brewed and blessed by Monks, had been born.
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Somerville’s Ten Hills resident, Elias Hasket Derby, was a Revolutionary War patriot, America’s first millionaire and the namesake of Winter Hill’s Derby Street. He was a Salem ship owner whose dozens of vessels canvassed the globe. It was one of his ships that brought home the first word that the Revolutionary War had come to an end. You can find the image of his favorite ship, The Grand Turk, on some of today’s Old Spice toiletry bottles. In 1801 another of his ships, the Recovery, brought the first shipment of coffee from the far-east to Salem, opening American coffee trade for the next fifteen years.
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After the Boston Tea Party of 1773, a large number of Americans switched to coffee during the American Revolution because drinking tea appeared unpatriotic.
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Joseph Barrell was a wealthy Boston ship owner, a fishery merchant and a member of the Sons of Liberty. Ten years after the Revolution, he purchased Cobble Hill in Charlestown/Somerville and the 211 acres surrounding it for his remarkable Bullfinch-designed country home. Later, this mansion would become the original McLean Hospital. One of his ships, the Columbia Rediviva, was the first American vessel to circumnavigate the globe, leaving Boston on 9/30/1787 and returning on 8/9/1790. Before accomplishing this feat, it claimed the Pacific West Coast for America, and its log stated that “228 pounds of coffee” were taken aboard. One would fathom, this helped keep the helmsman alert.
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James Sanborn lived in a mansion on Winter Hill from 1872, the year Somerville became a city, until his death in 1903. He began his entrepreneurial pursuits at a young age selling garden seeds. He went into the coffee and spice business in 1868, where he met Caleb Chase. They eventually became partners in the founding of the Chase and Sanborn Company. They were the first to sell coffee in a sealed can to keep it fresher longer and the first to market it from coast to coast.
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Chase and Sanborn sponsored the successful radio program, The Chase and Sanborn Hour. Famous comedians such as W.C. Fields, Jimmy Durante, and many others got their start on the show. The host of entertainment was Edgar Bergen, a ventriloquist and popular performer at the time. His daughter Candice, is known for her work on the television programs Murphy Brown, Boston Legal, and many movies. She started her career as a child on the program. The star-studded show lasted 35 years from 1931 to 1966 with a total of 102 episodes. Its second to last episode was a tribute to Somerville-born comedian Fred Allen.