People – Page 2 – Local History Collections

2018-03-02

Using Ancestry

Ancestry is one of the many digital resources available through our library. It allows you to search through many types of historical records, including census, military, immigration, and vital records, among others. This makes it a fantastic resource for genealogical research.

Portrait of Mary Trow (1871-1947) — Standing portrait of Mary Trow (1871-1947)

Take, for example, this panel card (above) featuring Mary Trow. It’s one of a number of images for which we’ve been able to identify the subject(s), despite it not having a caption.

Screenshot of Ancestry search fields — Basic search for Mary Trow using Ancestry

By simply inputting her name and location in Ancestry’s search fields, I was able to learn a bit about her.

Mary Lewis Trow was born on August 27, 1871 to Charles and Georgianna Trow. She had two younger siblings, Harris (b. October 22, 1876) and Eugenia (b. March 28, 1886). Her father was a printer who was born in Cambridge, MA. They all lived with Georgianna’s father, Daniel Cushman, a ship carpenter.

According to census records, Mary started working as a reporter for the daily paper sometime between 1910 and 1920, an occupation she held for over 20 years. She continued to live with her sister, Eugenia, on Second Brook Street (image below) up until she passed away in 1947.

Cushman-Trow House, 55 Second Brook Street, 1939

Just from a name and a location (or more information if you have it), Ancestry can often provide a bounty of information, or at least a starting place for further research.

Full access to Ancestry Library and American Ancestors, another digital resource, is available at the library. Stop by to learn more and to try them out for yourself.

Source: Images from the Local History Room Image Collection (IC7).

2018-03-01

Emily Fuller Drew: Historian and Photographer

In honor of Women’s History Month, March’s local history exhibit will feature materials from Emily Fuller Drew (1881-1950), who we have to thank for much of what we know about Kingston’s history. She put in an enormous of amount of work to help preserve the history of this town. Leaving a collection of more than 700 lantern slides, Emily photographed existing images that were decaying in order to preserve the informational content. She also photographed a variety of houses, buildings, events, and people of Kingston. Local history was a passion for Emily, and she recorded it not only visually, but also in her numerous unpublished essays and notes.

Stop by the library to learn more about Emily and her legacy!

Source: Image from the Emily Fuller Drew Collection (MC16).

2018-02-09

Looking ahead to spring

Missing the warm weather yet? Now that we’re halfway through winter, spring is right around the corner.

Take a look at this beautiful bed of asters in front of the house at 280 Main Street, built around 1897. The woman on the left is Martha Maglathlin. On the right you can see the fork of Wapping Road (left) and Pembroke Street (right), with the public watering trough at the point of the intersection.

Source: Image from the Local History Room Image Collection (IC7).

2018-02-02

Are you ready for some football?

Kneeling, left to right: Bob Bailey, Raoul Corazzari, George Candini, Clyde Melli, Eddie Cadwell, Stephen Reed, Bob Davis

In 1933, the Kingston High School football team won the South Shore Championship. Over the course of this season, they won five games, lost two, and tied one. 13 out of the 28 team members can be seen here in their practice jerseys on the field behind the Reed Community House. They were coached by Mr. Gotschall, the Principal, who also supervised the basketball team.

Source: Image from the Local History Room Image Collection (IC7).

2018-02-01

“Just a word to let you know I am still alive…”: Postcards from World War I

Postcard with image of soldiers and horses, captioned "Greetings from Camp Gordon, Atlanta, Ga." — Postcard sent by Joseph Finney to Mary Fries, postmarked November 21, 1917

When the US entered World War I in 1917 and called for a draft, Joseph Finney registered during the first round. He became one of approximately 2 million men who joined the American Expeditionary Forces, armed forces sent overseas to Europe. Throughout his service he exchanged postcards with friends and family, especially his elder sister, Ella Finney, and the woman he went on to marry upon his return, Mary Fries. Looking through this correspondence allows us to piece together a loose timeline of his experiences. Stop by the library to check out this exhibit for yourself!

Source: Image from the Joseph Cushman Finney Papers (MC11).

2018-01-26

Feline friend

Since we saw a photo of Rose Delano with a litter of puppies earlier this month, it’s only fair to see a feline friend too! Here is Norma Drew holding a rather patient cat in her arms.

Source: Image from the Emily Fuller Drew Collection (MC16).

2018-01-19

Skiing down Summer Street

Four young men on cross-country skis on Summer Street in Kingston, MA — From left to right: Clinton Keith, Isaac Hathaway Sr., Ralph Drew, and Ralph Holmes, around 1915

On a snowy, winter day a hundred years ago, these four young men strapped on their cross-country skis and posed for this picture right in the center of Summer Street, just north of the railroad tracks. The Adams Block is visible on the right, and the laundry building that was previously the freight station for the railroad is visible on the left.

Source: Image from the Albion Holmes Collection (MC25).

2018-01-05

Puppies

Here’s an especially fun photograph to enjoy. It’s clear from the blurriness that the puppies were on the move—as puppies usually are. Rose (Blair) Delano is holding one of them, while a stoic hound sits by her side.

Source: Image from the Delano Photograph Collection (IC11).

2018-01-02

Ada Brewster: Civil War Nurse, Traveler, and Artist

Sketch captioned "Cow Boy from Arizona," dated April 19, 1885 — Cow Boy from Arizona, April 19, 1885

Ada Brewster, born in Kingston on May 25, 1842, lived a fascinating life. She served as a nurse at Lovell General Hopsital in Rhode Island during the Civil War; worked at the U.S. Mint in Carson City, Nevada during the production of the first trade dollar coined by the federal government; studied art at the Lowell Institute in Boston and the California School of Design (now the San Francisco Art Institute); opened her own art studio and became known as a portraitist, illustrator, china-painter, and teacher; and moved all over the country before returning home to Kingston in 1919. Stop by to learn more in this month’s Local History exhibit, featuring a selection of Ada’s sketches from her time out West.

Source: This sketch comes from the Ada Brewster Collection (MC24).

2017-12-27

Looking forward to seeing The Post? Don’t forget about Gobin Stair and Beacon Press

Training Green and First Parish Church in the snow, 2010

One of this season’s new movies, The Post, recounts The Washington Post’s efforts to publish the Pentagon Papers.

Here in the Local History Room, we have a four-volume set of the Pentagon Papers, published by Beacon Press in 1971. As director of the publisher, Kingston’s own Gobin Stair played a decisive role in accepting Senator Mike Gravel’s proposal to publish the papers for the first time in book form and subsequently ensuring that Beacon could shoulder the political pressure, financial burden, and logistical obstacles they encountered throughout the publication process.

The first volume in our set is signed by Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who released the papers to the newspapers. If you’d like to see it for yourself, just let us know!

Gobin Stair was also a distinguished artist. He created the Alphabet Mural—depicting the evolution of language, literacy, and communication—that we are lucky to have on the wall of our meeting room. A supporter of libraries, he wrote at the time of the mural’s opening, “The Alphabet Mural calls attention to a major human accomplishment. It also declares our awareness of responsibility to meet the needs of readers right here in our growing Kingston.” Well said.

If you’re interested in some further reading, the Beacon Broadside just posted a great piece called “Our Civic Duty: Why We Published the Pentagon Papers.”