Professor Edmund Burke Delabarre’s dates
Professor Delabarre 1913
Born September 25, 1863, Dover, Maine.
In 1882 entered Brown University, Providence, RI
He left Brown University after his freshman year because his family moved to Conway, Massachusetts and he started attending Amherst College and graduated in 1883.
In 1887-88 he studied at the University of Berlin, Germany and at Harvard University from 1888 to 1890 receiving his Master of Arts degree from Harvard in 1889.
He studied at the University in Freiburg, Germany, in 1890-91, where he obtained his doctoral degree in Philosophy.
In 1891 he was appointed Associated Professor of Psychology at Brown University but was given leave of absence to study at the Sorbonne, Paris, France, and did not begin his work at Brown until the following year.
In 1891 he was nominated Assistant Professor of Psychology and in 1896 to Full Professor.
He established the Brown Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, the twelfth of its kind in USA. He did scientific experimentation about the effects of Cannabis Indica.
Professor Delabarre’s life may be thought as having three principal parts: he was a brilliant, meticulous and studious psychologist; he was a student of certain aspects of American Archaeology and also on visual phenomena; he was a man keenly interested in nature, home and family life.
In 1907 he married Dorothea Esther Cotton of Providence, Rhode Island, and they had one son and three daughters.
He retired from teaching in 1932, at the age of 69. He lived 13 more years. He died on March 16, 1945 at the age of 82.
Dighton Rock
Besides his scientific researches and teaching at Brown University he spent many years researching the Dighton Rock inscriptions. He acquired a summer home in Berkley, Assonet Neck, about two miles away from where Dighton Rock was located on the left bank of Taunton River.
He bought a good house on Grinnell street, situated on Assonet Neck of Berkley, on July 16, 1910, together with 22 acres of surrounding land. He named this Estate “ Miguel Corte Real Farm”.
He became fascinated by his research about the Dighton Rock inscriptions. He became “hypnotized” by the inscriptions to the point that even over read them!
He did not
come up with any new theory of his own, until December 2nd, 1918,
when he discovered the date 1511 engraved on the Dighton Rock. With this date
of 1511 he started researching what navigators from Europe might have crossed
the Atlantic around that date of 1511.
He found out that there are official Royal Charts in the Portuguese Archives
in Lisbon, Portugal stating that two brothers navigators Gaspar and Miguel
Corte Real made voyages to New England in 1501 and 1502 and neither ever
returned to Portugal. With this concrete information Professor Delabarre
discovered besides the date 1511, etched on the Rock the name of Miguel Corte
Real and the Portuguese Coat of Arms the “V” form.
He collected and reviewed every newspaper and magazine article that was ever written about Dighton Rock inscriptions. He made a collection of 22 “theories” including even those hypothesis that make no sense at all! He published a book, 9,5 x 6, in 1928 entitled “Dighton Rock” with 369 pages presenting 657 bibliographical references!
Portuguese Consul Abílio Águas
The port of Providence in the twenties was a very busy place for receiving many immigrants from Continental Portugal, Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde, etc. There was a need for a Portuguese Consul, and the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs sent to Providence Mr. Abílio Águas born in the City of Figueira da Foz, because he had experience of having lived in London, England, South Africa and Brazil.
When Consul Águas arrived in Providence and found out that Professor Delabarre had discovered the name of Miguel Corte Real engraved on the face of Dighton, he immediately requested from the Portuguese Government the highest Decoration of The Portuguese Cross of the Order of Christ to be bestowed upon the Brown Professor, in 1926, Well deserved! The Consul and the Professor Delabarre became very close friends to the point that Consul Águas ended up by marrying Professor Delabarre’s daughter, who became Maria Elizabeth Delabarre Águas. They had two daughters named Joan Elizabeth Delabarre Águas and Antonia Maria Delabarre Águas.
Cartoon on a local newspaper
The Golden Portuguese Cross of the Order of Christ with extremities terminating in 45 degree angles. Delabarre with this Cross on his chest did not discoverer the four crosses like it engraved on the face of Dighton Rock because even TODAY the Anglo-Saxon Encyclopedias do NOT have any information about the Portuguese Cross!
In 1926 António de Oliveira Salazar became a dictator of Portugal and he dismissed Consul Águas in 1929. It was a good thing the consul was already married to an American woman so he could continue to live legally in USA!
To make ends meet Abílio Águas worked for a newspaper “News Tribune” and for 5 years he defended the needs of the Portuguese American community and even tried to have the Portuguese American leaders of the State of Rhode Island and Massachusetts to get together with Professor Delabarre to come up with a feasible project to preserved Dighton Rock, but because of personal jealousies among themselves, the Dighton Rock was forced to continue to be on the same shameful place in tidal water of the Taunton River!
Professor Delabarre never used his prestige to work with the people of Berkley and never had either a plan so together with State Representatives and State Senators to obtain approved Bills for funds to get the Rock out of the water and to construct proper buildings for a Dighton Rock Museum.
Professor Delabarre must have died a very unhappy man! He bought a small area of land around Dighton Rock for its protection and gave it on his will to the Old Colony Historical Society of Taunton which never did anything to protect Dighton Rock!
Because Professor Delabarre discovered the Portuguese name engraved on the face of Dighton Rock and became famous for it, he continues to be despised – to this day –by the Professors of the Department of the Psychology- that he created- at Brown University; by the Teachers of the Portuguese Brazilian Studies; and even by the Professors of the Archaeology-Epigraphy of the same university!
Unfortunately to this day Brown University never paid homage to Delabarre’s original epigraphic discovery on the face of Dighton Rock.
After Delabarre’s death
The New York Times, March 17, 1945
Delabarre died on March 16, 1945. There are eight documents at the Taunton Registry of Deeds related to all Delabarre’s properties in Berkley.
On August 27, 1945, (five months after his death), there is a document signed by widow Dorothea C. Delabarre, of Providence to her daughter Maria Elizabeth Delabarre Águas, Joan Elizabeth Delabarre Águas and Antonia Maria Delabarre Águas conveying the track of land known as “Miguel Corte Real Farm”, in Berkley, MA.
Post scriptum on Abílio Águas
He believed strongly in democratic form of government. Even in USA he organized a “Committee Pro-Democracy in Portugal”. He offered to go to US Navy during the II World War.
He died in Taunton, MA, USA, on July 31, 1981.
On July 2, 1982, his hometown, the City of Figueira da Foz in Continental Portugal named a street in that city with his name “Abílio Águas”.