Kingston (Massachusetts) Public Library
Last week’s look at the capitalist Horatio Adams leads to this week’s pique. Among the many stockbroker’s receipts, enticements to buy land in Nebraska, an 8% Gold Bond for the Death Valley – Arcalvado Consolidated Mine Company, and stock in the Association Salt Company is a beautiful little booklet.
Yes, in January 1893, a friend of Horatio’s sent him a golden opportunity, a chance to invest in a Colossal Elephant to be built at the Chicago World’s Fair. The patent holder J.V. Lafferty had already built two others: Lucy the Margate Elephant near Atlantic City, NJ, and the Elephantine Colossus in Coney Island. He and his partners hoped to raise enough money to build an even grander “work of art and mechanical genius.”
While Lucy stood a mere 44 feet tall and the Colossus stretched to 100, the proposed Chicago model would take on “a more elaborate scale…200 feet to the top of ‘Howdah’ or observatory, from which a grand view can be had for miles.”
Better yet, “beyond the increase in size over any yet attempted, and also of great importance and attractiveness, is the fact that when this Elephant is finished, IT WILL RAISE ITS TRUNK PERPENDICULARLY, ROLL ITS GREAT EYEBALLS, FLAP ITS EARS AND WAG ITS TAIL as naturally as a live elephant.” A “monstrous Electric Calliope Organ in his throat” would add sound.
After some discussion of the profit potential in soda fountains and “segar” stands, the prospectus notes that “the Elephant and plant will be insured against fire,” a good plan as the Coney Island Colossus would be destroyed by fire just a few years later.
As tempting an opportunity as the eye-rolling, ear-flapping Colossal Elephant represented, Horatio was not swayed. And it seems he was not alone in turning down the investment: searching through books and photographs and postcards related to the Fair yields not a single clue that the Colossal Elephant was ever built.
Applications for Kingston’s 2011 Ichabod Washburn Benevolent Fund are now online.
Completed forms are due at the Town Clerk’s Office by January 31, 2011. Funds will be distributed in March 2011.
To learn more about Ichabod Washburn, check out this earlier post.
For more about Old Colony Railroad, check out the Local History Room’s exhibit case.
At one of their earliest meetings, the Directors of the Old Colony Railroad voted to give the engines historical names related to Plymouth. The “Mayflower” along with the “Miles Standish” pulled the very first trainload of dignitaries officials on the railroad’s inaugural excursion on November 8, 1845.
Stop by the Library and take a look at this month’s exhibit, which highlights Kingston graduates and graduations from 1862 on.
This photograph was donated by the daughter of one of the graduates pictured. The inscription on the back reads “Vesta Porter. Mamma first girl on left, next to her (front) Susan Quinn & Margaret Holmes. Others are Freda Tobey, Abbie & Adaline Harrub, Philip Smith, Ralph Drew, Stanley Skakle.” Vest Porter wrote the Class Prophecy, which peered into the future lives of her classmates.
Ah, the tropics! Here Henry M. Jones, author of Ships of Kingston standing at the far left, and four unidentified friends enjoy a refreshing treat under the palms. The woman may be Henry’s wife Abby Bosworth Holmes Jones, though between the hat and the coconut, it’s difficult to tell. The dog is also anonymous.
In 1928, the first and second grade students in Elspeth Hardy’s class wrote a holiday story about a little dog named Laddie saving Christmas for his family. As Mrs. Hardy described the process, “The children worked collectively; one child started with an opening sentence, the others took the thought and followed on until the tale was finished.” Illustrated by Kingston High graduate Marion Cobb Dries, the book was published in November 1928.
Laddie will be featured at Storytime in the Children’s Room on Monday, Dec. 21 at 6:30 in a special reading by archivist Susan Aprill.
In the 1948 Annual Report of the Town of Kingston, the Board of Health reported:
On October 20th, 1948, a fin-back whale came ashore north of the town pier [today’s town landing] at the foot of River Street. Measuring 42 ft. in length and weighing approximately 30 tons, this would ordinarily have been a human interest story, but it developed into a Board of Health problem when this Board was forced to dispose of the mammal. Our Highway Department with the assistance of power machinery, loaded the whale on a heavy-duty platform trailer and carried it to the Town Dump where it was suitably buried.
After the dump closed a few years later, the Kingston Drive-In was built on the site. Today this location is occupied by Summerhill Plaza, so yes, indeed, there is a whale buried under the Stop-n-Shop!
