Answer:  c) Charles I. Born on November 19, 1600, Charles may have wished he hadn’t waited around to be crowned in 1625 and instead had hopped on the Mayflower in 1620 and landed safely in Massachusetts, because when he did become King, he angered a lot of people in England and Ireland and was parted from his head against his will. 

Answer: d) A picture of Ralph Waldo Emerson. From Louisa’s November 1860 journal entry: “Our birthday. Gave Father a ream of paper, and he gave me Emerson’s picture; so both were happy.” A contemporary of Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson was an encouraging and much-admired presence in Louisa’s life, leading her to once call him “the god of my idolatry.”

Answer: All of them! In Victorian times, sparkly Christmas trees were the rage. To make branches sparkle, you could dip the branches in boiling water mixed with alum, let soak, dry, and repeat as needed. Alum was also added to bread mixes to make the bread heavier and whiter in color. Sparkly Christmas trees and shiny boots were nice, but consuming alum-laced bread could lead to severe and prolonged digestive problems.

Answer: c) Atropa belladonna, also known as deadly nightshade. Atropa belladonna eyedrops might dilate high-fashion Victorian women’s eyes, but they could also cause blindness or permanent damage.

Answer: a) Eating arsenic wafers 

Answer: False. While Colonial residents might have decorated their homes with evergreen boughs symbolic of spring’s return, oranges, lemons, and limes would have been too precious to waste on décor.

Answer: b) or c) 15-year-old Ralph Waldo Emerson could enjoy a hot Negus drink with or without wine as there was no legal drinking age in early 1800s America. Popular in the Regency era, Negus is a hot mulled wine infused with sugar, lemon, and nutmeg. Reportedly named after its creator, English Army Lt. Col. Francis Negus (1670-1732), the drink was served with or without wine. 

As found in Jerry Thomas’ 1862 How to Mix Drinks: or The Bon-Vivant’s Companion, you would make Negus by starting with a pint of port wine and adding 1/2 pound loaf sugar, 1 lemon, and grated nutmeg to taste. Mix the wine, sugar, lemon, and nutmeg, and pour 1 quart of boiling water over the mixture. Cover, and serve while warm. For a non-alcoholic version, replace the wine with cranberry juice or apple cider. (If you guessed a) Welch’s Concord Grape Juice, you’re only a few decades away from being correct. The Concord grape was first grown in 1849, and the first Welch’s Grape Juice bottled in 1869).

Answer: b) Charles Dickens, author of A Christmas Carol published in 1843

Answer: c) Love

Answer: b) It was banned in New England! Born in Devon, England, in 1579, Thomas Morton was a lawyer and writer and came to New England in 1620. He founded the town of Merrymount (current day Quincy) and tried to establish a friendly community integrated with the native Algonquins. This, combined with his stance against some of his acquaintances’ actions that included their selling indentured slaves to Virginia, angered his fellow Puritans and he was labeled by Governor William Bradford as “The Lord of Misrule.” 

In 1628, Morton was arrested and charged for selling guns to the Native Americans. He was banished to the Isle of Shoals in New Hampshire where he was dropped off and left to die. But his Native American friends provided him with food until, by a stroke of luck, Morton was picked up by an English fishing ship and taken back to England. He returned to America a few years later, where, now very annoyed, in 1637, he wrote The New England Canaan which cast a very poor light on his fellow Puritans and their way of life. The New England Puritans responded by banning the book, eventually recapturing poor Morton and trying him for sedition. Slowly dying, Morton was granted clemency from prison and spent the rest of his days in Maine.