I don’t know who he was or where he lived, but I believe that he loved his little dog friend.
Source: Loring Photograph collection.
Kingston (Massachusetts) Public Library
To mark the passing of Margaret Warnsman, a former Library Trustee and Local History Room donor, this month’s exhibit features a small selection from the papers, photographs and other materials Margaret collected and gave to the Town of Kingston, in care of the Library.
One of my favorite things is finding something completely unexpected, and Margaret’s collection did not disappoint. In browsing for items to display, I opened a folder titled “Scholarship donations, 1924” to find several pages of names and figures in pencil.
Pretty standard, until I turned the page.
Back when the Library was on the other side of the street, the Kingston Inn occupied our current site at the corner of Green and Summer. Originally called the Patuxet House, the hotel was built in 1854 by Josiah Cushman to capitalize on the arrival of the Old Colony Railroad just a few years earlier. The hotel was not particularly successful, and several owners and managers were involved through the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Some strange and mysterious events took place at the Inn. In 1881, the remains of six people and “funerary objects” were discovered on the grounds. Because it was a suspected Native American burial ground, the remains were turned over the Peabody Essex Museum. In 1921, the “Rum-Runner’s Murder” took place in the 20 car garage. The somewhat cloudy circumstances involved professional dice players, a trunkful of illegal liquor and $4,000 in missing cash. A murder trial followed in 1922. In 1927, the re-christened Bay View Inn was offered as first prize in a raffle as the First Annual Grand Bazaar by the Ancient Order of Hibernians. For reasons unknown, the raffle never happened.
By the 1950’s, the hotel — once again called the Kingston Inn — was advertised as a summer resort for African-Americans, particularly those travelling from New York for a Cape Cod vacation. Unfortunately the venue remained as unsuccessful as it had been a century earlier. In 1970, the contents were auctioned and the building was razed.
Source: Major Bradford’s Town, by Doris Johnson (Town of Kingston: 1976)
In the search for photographs for the summertime exhibit, these three images turned up. As seen in earlier posts, the Plymouth & Kingston trolley, which started in 1886, merged with other lines and expanded until the tracks reached Brockton in 1900. The emergence of Kingston as a summer destination and the development of the cottage communities of Rocky Nook quickly followed.
The company evolved into the Plymouth & Brockton Street Railway, which (despite its name) runs buses on the South Shore.
While it’s not clear if these men are motormen (drivers) or conductors (ticket takers, schedule keepers and safety inspectors), they seem very serious about the work at hand, or at least about posing for the photographer.
Not to mention well-armed.
This month’s exhibit celebrates summer in Kingston with picnics and parades, fresh sweet corn from the farmer’s market, swimming, fishing, and just lounging on the grass eating ice cream.
Here’s the front of a float in Kingston’s 200th Anniversary Parade, which rolled on August 20, 1926. The four boys behind the float seem very interested in whatever’s going on behind that shack…
Well, yeah, that’s why!
On June 2, 1911, one of this upstanding pair wrote to Michael McGrath announcing an imminent visit.
In the 1910 federal census, Michael McGrath is listed as a 57 year old foreman and farmer who owned a home and land on Elm Street. He appeared in an earlier post posing with a team of oxen while working on the Bailey Playground in 1926. The census is no help in identifying Mr. Sterry, and without a last name, John could be anybody.
They say the coast is the most and the west is the best.
Here Kingstonian Margaret Holmes and an unidentified friend pose at the Tunnel Tree, a giant sequoia and well-known tourist attraction in Yosemite National Park.