Kingston (Massachusetts) Public Library
This photograph just turned up in a recent donation to the Local History Room. It has no date, no place, nothing beyond the image itself. Context and best guesses, however, suggest that it dates to the late 19th century and shows the interior of one of the small boatyards on the Jones River. Further, the vessel under construction very likely belonged to a member of the Holmes family. More research may turn up additional information. In the meantime, enjoy the unusual view.
Who was Martin Parris?
One of Kingston’s first school teachers, Martin Parris was born in Pembroke in 1766. He attended Brown University; in May 1794 the Kingston Selectmen hired him to teach school at an annual salary of seventy pounds. That same year, he married Kingston native Julia Drew; they would eventually have three sons, all of whom predeceased them. Parris taught in Kingston for about eight years, then continued teaching in Plymouth for several more.
In 1817, he was ordained as a minister of the First Congregational Church of Marshfield. Though noted as an excellent teacher of good character, he appears to have been less successful in his second career, perhaps in part due to the deaths of two of his sons during his Marshfield tenure. Parris retired in 1838 and returned to Kingston, where on November 15, 1839, he died of “old age and hiccoughs.” *
In 1792, he was inoculated against smallpox.
Braintree Oct.r 9th 1792
This certifies that Mr. Martin Parris, having received the Small-Pox at my hospital, is properly cleansed from the infection, and has paid the customary fees for inoculation, board and attendance.
Ephraim Wales
And who was Ephraim Wales?
Born on May 9, 1746, in the South Precinct of Braintree (later Randolph ), Ephraim Wales was “an eminent and successful doctor.” After graduating from Harvard College in 1768, he studied with Dr. Amos Putnam of Danvers, then returned to South Braintree to establish his medical practice. He opened a smallpox hospital across South Main Street from his home, where in 1777 he inoculated Continental Army soldiers after General George Washington ordered all troops and recruits who had not had the disease to undergo the treatment.
A year earlier, the disease had struck the Army severely, part of an epidemic that affected the new country between 1775 and 1782 and killed an estimated 125,000 people. Though the first inoculations in North America dated to 1721, town residents opposed Wales’ hospital. The disease had a frightening mortality rate and inoculation, also called variolation or insufflation, meant purposeful infection with a milder form of the disease to create immunity. A true vaccine would not be developed until 1796.
In 1793, Dr. Wales served on the committee that formed the town of Randolph from the South Precinct, and as the first town moderator. He also taught a number of medical students. He died April 7, 1805.
Sources:
* Vital Records of Kingston Massachusetts to the Year 1850. (1911)
In the Pilgrim Way: History of the First Congregational Church, Marshfield, MA. by Linda Ramsey Ashley (2001)
“Old house isn’t as historic as was thought” by Fred Hanson. The Patriot Ledger, May 2, 2005
Contributions to the Annals of Medical Progress and Medical Education in the United States Before and During the War of Independence by Joseph Meredith Toner (1874; reprinted 1970)
Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of the State of Massachusetts. Edited by William Richard Cutter and William Frederick Adams (191 0)
A beautiful cabinet card recently came into the Local History Room, part of a larger collection. While the contrast in the original is a little faded (and has been adjusted in this scan), the image is otherwise perfect, and the subject — harvesting the cranberry crop — could not be more timely.
This close-up shows men, women and children at work, dressed more formally than we might expect for such manual labor.
But where is this bog? It could be almost anywhere: the blank back of the cabinet card yields no clues. A little sleuthing through the photograph collections however, turns up a second copy, much more worn but bearing a typed caption that tells us that this is indeed a Kingston location.
This week’s study in incongruity comes from the Ruth Forbes Chandler papers. The finding aid for the collection gives the following biographical snippets:
Author of a number of books and short stories for children. Teacher and principal in the New Bedford school system. Moved to Kingston in the 1950s. Lived at at 228 Main Street. Communicant of the Kingston First Parish Church, member and secretary of the Jones River Village Club, and a Friend of the Library.
What it does not tell us is the identities of the these latter-day First Comers, where they were headed, and perhaps most interestingly, what kind of cars did Pilgrims drive?
Update: It’s got to be a Plymouth, right?
The Local History Room started some time ago, and while the exact date may never be known, the point of initiation is clear: a box of memorabilia carefully kept somewhere in the Frederic C. Adams Library.
At some point during her tenure, which stretched from the Library’s founding in 1898 to her retirement in 1936, Jennie F. McLauthlen “1st Librarian” wrote this undated note
It has been my object to slip into this box anything which may promise to be of local interest in the years to come. After a generation or two, a picture of the life of Kingston in these days as shown by this varied and heterogeneous collection may prove of value as well as of interest. At times it may look like a collection of trash, but I trust that my successors may consent to give it house room and perhaps add to it samples of their history.
And consent we do! Thank you Jennie, for saving us from the trash.
The text on the chalkboard tells us that “the body is the temple of the soul,” a lesson for all time perhaps.
Earlier this week the Patriot-Ledger asked “Have you had a penny lick, a hokey pokey or a toot today?” The paper went on to explain that before cones became the preferred holder, ice cream was eaten from a small glass (a penny lick), wrapped in a bit of paper (a hokey pokey) or scooped into a cup (a toot). Ice cream has been around awhile, but how long exactly?
Before mechanical refrigeration, ice cream and its well-chilled relatives depended on snow and ice either transported from colder areas or packed away during previous winters. It is unclear where or when ice cream was invented but the historical record shows that ancient cultures around the world — Egypt and Persia, Greece and Rome, India and China — all enjoyed sweet iced treats, though the expense generally limited the dish to the wealthiest elites.
In the 19th century, however, two American developments would democratize ice cream. First, in 1805 Boston businessman Frederick Tudor opened the first large scale commercial harvesting business, shipping New England ice as far away as the West Indies and around the country throughout the year. Then in 1843, Nancy Johnson of Philadelphia patented the hand-cranked ice cream freezer. By the later years of the 19th century, the combination meant everyone could enjoy an ice cream party.
In Kingston, ice cream could be bought in stores, restaurants. In the 1940s, Jordan’s Pharmacy on Summer Street in Kingston Center had a soda fountain, where school teams were known to stop in after practices at the Bailey Playground or the Reed Community Building.
Located on Main Street in the building that now houses the Charlie Horse restaurant, Dutchland Farms was known for its ice cream treats in the 1930s. By the 1940s, the building housed Leland’s Restaurant but ice cream remained on the menu.
Today, we are spoiled with the easy availability and many flavors of ice cream. It is still a favorite warm weather treat.
Long before the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry and even earlier than the infamous trade that took Babe Ruth from Fenway to the Bronx, a profound difference split the game we know as America’s past-time. There were actually two kinds of baseball – the Massachusetts Game and the New York Game. Derived from an earlier version called Town Ball, itself a descendant of the English game of rounders, the Massachusetts Game was not formalized until 1858 (see the rule book here ), while the New York variety followed the rules of the Knickerbocker Club, dated 1845.
The New England version was, in its time considered the rougher, less civilized game, in no small part because the fielders got the baserunner (called a striker) out by hitting him with the ball, a task so difficult that innings ended after only one out and games concluded as soon as one side scored 100 runs, no matter the number of innings completed. After the Civil War, the New York Game surged in popularity and crowded out the Massachusetts style.
Kingston had a town team by the last years of the 19th century, but very little information, beyond the names added to this photograph, can be found in the Local History Room. We do know that Bob Ford graduated from Kingston High School in 1898 (a classmate of Emily Fuller Drew), while Tick Ford (real name Winthrop) crewed on Henry Jones’ sail boat Kittiwake V and later served as a Kingston Water Commissioner. Based on their equipment, it seems that Carl Faunce pitched while Russel Soule caught. Otherwise, the exploits of the Kingston Town Team remain a mystery to us today.
Players: (standing left to right) John Gaegon, Fred Cooke, Bob. Faulkner, Bob. Ford, Tick Ford. (seated left to right) Ralph Seamore, Carl Faunce, Russel Soule, Jack Drew
So said the Old Colony Memorial newspaper on July 9, 1910.
The Jones River Village Club (now the Jones River Village Historical Society) had discussed for several months how to promote the state’s new restrictions on fireworks, which limited the use of blank cartridges, cannon rockets and other explosive means of celebration. The grand result: a Fourth of July parade for the whole town that the paper reported as “a great success in every way.”
Police Chief Ephraim Pratt served as Marshall. Houses along the parade route sported “handsome decorations.” The procession included riders, floats, automobiles and bicyclists.
Most of the floats were pulled by teams of oxen or horses. Above, what looks like a dirigible graces one gaily decorated wagon, while below, riders include a knight from the King Arthur Flour Company, a rough-ridin’ Teddy Roosevelt look-alike, a dude and a clown. Festive!
Many of the floats bore advertising, like the wagon of grocer E.S. Wright which pitched Sherwin Williams Paint, or the cart below, unfortunately not listed in the paper, which apparently touted somebody’s clams!
Source: The Old Colony Memorial, July 9, 1910; minutes of the Jones River Village Club, 1910.
This is Emily Burt Bradford, grandmother and namesake of Emily Burt Holmes Marvin, from whose family papers it comes.
It is a tintype, an early form of photography. The images on tintypes, like daguerrotypes and ambrotypes, were unique photographs captured directly, meaning there was no intervening negative. The underlying support for the image is also different: tintypes were “printed” on thin pieces of iron or steel, darkened by paint, enamel or lacquer. Also called ferrotypes or melainotypes, they were more durable than other early photographic images, which were produced on glass.
This particular image has no date, but tintypes were common from the1850s into the 1930s. And this one is small. How small exactly?
This small.