New England Travels

Brick and Mortar, Steel and Glass - Boston Architecture

2012-01-24T08:34:00.000-05:00

A bastion of stalwart, stubborn history, a Federalist style building is flanked, almost threateningly, by later 19th century examples of architectural prowess. I love the flag. It is like an exclamation point on the little building.

But, the bigger brick buildings shouldn't be too cocky.

What goes around, comes around, as the 19th century gets dwarfed by the 20th.

Off Topic - Book Sale

2012-01-21T08:17:00.000-05:00

This is to announce that TODAY and TOMORROW only, my time-travel adventure novel MYTHS OF THE MODERN MAN will be FREE exclusively on Amazon.com. This is an ebook, which can be downloaded to your Kindle or your computer via Kindle PC software (which is also free from Amazon). Read a couple reviews here at the Library Thing website.

The Audience that Wouldn't Leave - Lowell, Masschusetts

2012-01-17T07:19:00.000-05:00

This piece was originally posted on my (now suspended) Tragedy and Comedy in New England blog:

Sometime in the mid-1800s, when theatre was hundreds of years old and yet still, seemingly to our modern sophistication, still in its infancy, “Oliver Twist” was presented in Lowell, Massachusetts. The play, based upon the Charles Dickens novel, must have been a hit, because the audience did not want to leave.

According to the “Before the Footlights and Behind the Scenes”, a book on American theatre stories by Olive Logan, (Parmelee & Co., Philadephia, 1870), after the play ended, the audience stayed in their seats, looking, perhaps expectantly, at the drawn curtain.

It is a painful moment in theatre when the audience walks out before the play is over, but perhaps merely awkward when they choose not to leave at all.

At last, the stage manager came out in front of the curtain and handled the problem, as stage managers are supposed to do, with absolute authority, and if possible, tact. He announced,

“Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to inform you that the play has terminated. As all the principal characters are dead, it cannot, of course, go on.”

That logic seemed reasonable to the audience, who finally went away.

William Skinner's Silk Mills - Holyoke, Massachusetts

2012-01-10T07:40:00.000-05:00

Skinner Silk Mill, 1887, Holyoke Photo-Gravure Co., New York

(An earlier version of this article was previously published in "Chickuppy & Friends" magazine, March/April 1987.)

In these days of synthetic materials and man-made chemical products, it is sometimes difficult to recall the days of goods, clothing specifically, the manufacture of which was accomplished with solely natural fibers and materials. For the William Skinner Manufacturing Company, the transformation of finished silks and satins from the raw silk of cocoons was both meticulous and most celebrated.

“Skinners Silks” it was written after William Skinner’s death, “Have become a mercantile synonym for a standard of excellence in silks, for being just what they purport to be, without sham or shoddy or flimsy imitation of other than they pretend to be. It was this quality of goods that insured the great growth of business.”

William Skinner was an extremely successful businessman, a tireless and dynamic manager of money, time, and opportunity. He knew the silk business very well as it was a family trade for which he had been meant from boyhood. It was in his blood.

His father, John Skinner was a London silk dyer. England had experienced a striking growth in the silk trade during the late 1700s, attempting to rival the markets of France and Italy. The growth was due partly to new colonial markets, colonies which were also expected to serve as new sources of raw silk after silk “farming” had been introduced to America, and partly due to England’s population of French refugee weavers.

These Huguenot craftsmen had fled France after the 1685 revocation by Louis XIV of the Edict of Nantes, which allowed continued persecution of French Protestants. William Skinner’s mother was a descendent of Huguenot refugees. The influence of family trade was great upon him, and through him it would be for his children as well. The Skinner tradition of the union between family and family business would be an unbroken thread, extending well into the 20th century.

In 1843, he came at age 19 to supervise operations at the Valentine Dye Works in Northampton, in western Massachusetts. Opportunities in the United States, and specifically in industrial New England were expanding greatly. By 1845 he and partner Joseph Warner had established a company for the manufacture of sewing silks. After three years of operation, Skinner moved the plant to Williamsburg, a nearby village whose Mill River created the perfect environment for industrial growth. Williamsburg business boomed, as several companies -- cotton mills, fulling mills, clock manufacturers, took advantage of the limitless water power.

The section of Mill River along which William Skinner settled his new Unquomonk Silk Mills became known as Skinnerville. The Englishman who came to a Yankee village and gave his company an Indian name developed a new and profitable identity as the name in silks. He came to the right place at the right time, for the young United States, despite its scattered frontier populations, was fascinated with the making and the wearing of silk.

Colonial America had experimented with the growing of white mulberry trees for the feeding of silk worms. For centuries, the product of the silkworm had been gathered from its natural and wild state, but in the cultivation of silk, the silkworm’s feeding and breeding are conducted within the groves of dwarf trees. During one stage of its development, the silkworm will attach itself to a leaf or branch and spin itself a cocoon. The cocoon is made of long silken fiber, tightly woven. It is when the silkworm emerges from his cocoon that the cocoons are gathered or harvested and unraveled to obtain the raw silk.

Chinese mulberry trees were introduced to the US in the 1830 as an improvement on previously utilized white mulberry trees. In 1832 the Connecticut legislature offered a bounty of 50 cents per pound for the cultivation of raw silk, and Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania soon after offered bounties, so great was the lure of silk and the expectations of the silk industry’s success. Part of the growth of silk manufacture in the U.S. was due to England’s competition in the industry with French silk, which it allowed to English markets free of duty. This competition forced many weavers to seek work here. Their exodus to America coincided with William Skinner’s arrival here.

Though silk manufacture had been encouraged in America by foreign concerns since colonial times, the product of raw silk, that is the farming of silk cocoons, was never great and eventually failed. The harvesting of silk cocoons and the farming of silk plantations required a great deal of labor, the high cost of which was prohibitive, and so the insatiable demands of a thriving silk manufacturing industry could not be continually fed by a few, faltering American silk planters.

Much of the raw silk and the late 1800s and early 1900s was thus imported from China, Japan, and Bengal. In 1854, another attempt to raise homegrown silk in California failed due to a blight on the mulberry trees. Though the cultivation of silk failed, the importation of raw silk from distant the cheap markets continued to supply the US manufacturers with raw material.

In silk manufacture, the first step is to unravel the cocoon of the silkworm. The cocoons are sorted according to color and texture, and are steamed or placed in warm water to soften the natural gum. When they are unraveled, a single cocoon may yield as much as 2000 or 3000 yards of filament. This is then twisted into thread and the thread is called raw silk. During the 19th century this process was done by hand.

The next step is called throwing, and prepared the raw silk thread for the loom by twisting it, doubling its thickness. In plants like William Skinner’s, the workers would then boil the imported raw silk to remove the natural gum, then dye the thread. For a white or pale color of thread the raw silk was bleached. The next step of weaving into different fabrics and material would complete the process of silk manufacture, aided in the 19th century by the 1838 invention of the power loom.

In 1929 the Boston Sunday Post recalled: “…For woman in the social life of the nation’s capital to admit that her basque and hoop skirt were not Skinnerian in texture was tantamount to reading herself out of elite circles….”

Skinner became the name in quality, and in fashion as well, that mysterious and intangible proof of legitimacy. It was even said that Mary Todd Lincoln aggravated her husband, President Lincoln, by her wifely extravagance in buying Skinner silks. Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, Washington, D.C., that town of provocative politics and parties, where foreseeing danger was never one of its strong suits, played merrily in glittering entertainment circles while the drama to be played at Fort Sumter lay ahead. Niblo’s Gardens, a jolly establishment, was featured in a musical revue, a chorus of which ran:

“I bought my gal a

Bolt of Skinner’s silk,

For a wedding gown,

And with an Irish policeman,

She hopped the town…”

By 1874 Skinner’s mill was a leading concern in industrial New England, and a celebrated part of American life. Skinner’s mill in Williamsburg employed between 130 and 200 hands. Separate offices for sales and orders were opened in New York and other cities. William Skinner was a millionaire, and his large family grew and thrived along with his business. Their fortunes would improve, but only after rebirth from a tragedy.

On paper, Skinner’s empire was expensive. In actuality, the mill was 100 feet long and four stories high. It was made of wood. It broke apart in splinters in a few heart-stopping moments in the flash flood of 1874.

On May 16, 1874 the mountain reservoir fed by Mill River broke.

The Springfield Weekly Journal reported: “The most terrible calamity of flood, and in loss of human lives the most terrible of all calamities that of visited New England, fell on four villages in Hampshire County Saturday morning, like a mysterious and inexplicable curse, sweeping away factories, bridges, houses, barns, the products and the means of industry, the men, women and children, the dumb creatures of their service, the fertile earth itself, in one restless, whelming sweep to destruction.”

At about 8:00 in the morning the break in the reservoir occurred, and the gatekeeper, George Cheney, charged on horseback down the valley to the village of Williamsburg to warn people to flee. He rode through Skinnerville, Haydenville and Leeds, with the angry reservoir waters at his heels. The inhabitants of Williamsburg had 10 minutes to escape, but by the time he reached Leeds, four miles below, the people there had only a two-minute head start.

The death toll was 145 persons.

The Journal reported at the time that 28 bodies were still missing. The villages were however lucky in retrospect. Most of the people who lived here were at work in the mills, and the factories were evacuated with amazing speed to the credit of the rider and mill owners like William Skinner, who helped clear their mills. Had the break occurred at night an unwarned population would have suffered an even larger loss of life.

Another rider who spread the alarm was milkman Collins Graves, who took up George Cheney’s warning cry. He headed straight for the factories, letting Chaney continue the task of warning the villages, because he realized correctly that the noise in the mills would drown out any passing shouts of warning, even the roar of the approaching torrent.

The journal noted: “Here the famous ride, which will be in song and story and told to the credit of Collins Graves around the fire-sides of Williamsburg forever as the salvation of many hundred lives, ended at the hotel; the horse and rider were both exhausted…”

If the loss of life was checked that 145 by the grace of a few minutes’ warning, a loss of property was extensive and a great deal of it never to be recovered. Before 1874 Williamsburg was a thriving village on its way to becoming an industrial center. After the flood, much of its industry was lost for good.

William Skinner’s factory and 1200 tenement houses for the workers, the foundations of “Skinnerville”, were destroyed. Skinner was financially wrecked, but his name was still respected, his credit was good, and on the strength of his reputation, William Skinner received offers from banks and business concerns from Boston to New York to Philadelphia. He had many faithful customers and friends. According to the Boston Sunday Post, “He was just getting his bearings to stage one of the greatest comebacks and American industry.”

James Newton and the Holyoke Water Power Company convinced William Skinner to re-establish is business in Holyoke, the HWPC even offered a plot of land for his mill rent-free for five years. During construction of the new mill, Skinner traveled by horse and buggy to his home in Northampton, then took the train to Holyoke and traveled back at night. He would soon move his home, damaged only slightly in the flood, to Holyoke. “Wistariahurst” remains today in Holyoke as a landmark, and valuable museum devoted to the Skinner family.

His home, not to mention his family and their legacies, would be fixtures in Holyoke for decades to come. What was the Uquomonk Silk Mills in Williamsburg now became the William Skinner Manufacturing Company, continuing its manufacture of satin sleeve linings, silk serges, silk and mohair braids, machine and buttonholed twists, sewings, organzine and cassimere sewings. Over 7000 pounds of silk products were produced each month by 500 mill hands.

Holyoke in 1874 had been a city for about one year. Its first mayor would take office in 1874, Mayor William B.C. Pearsons. It was a city of workers, poor Irish and French-Canadian laborers whose industry would help build the city and whose descendants would help shape it and have a share of its future.

The Holyoke opportunity did not occur merely as a happy accident for William Skinner; rather Holyoke’s very streets were planned by commercial interests for the benefit and convenience of industry. Skinner, with his commercial vigor and commercial paternalism, would fit into Holyoke pattern perfectly. He was a complement to the city’s industrial reputation, and in turn Holyoke would produce a base for his factory in a planned city with modern infrastructure geared toward manufacturing, and with an endless supply of workers.

By 1883 William Skinner’s two sons, William and Joseph, joined him in the family firm, which was renamed William Skinner and Sons. It was estimated in 1894 that the company had 450 hands but that “as soon as the loons are running in the presently in large number one mill there will be 900 and employed.” Some of the employees were skilled machinists and weavers, many were unskilled laborers, and still others, of course, were children.

It has been recorded that Skinner’s relationship with his employees was good. By the 1930s when the Skinner mills were the first in western Massachusetts to recognize the CIO, agreements with the textile workers organizing committee were maintained and strikes or the threat of strikes were settled quickly by the management, now the hands of sons William and Joseph. In 1937 the management and the TWOC (Textile Workers Organizing Committee) signed an agreement for $16.00 per week minimum wage which was $1.00 more than prescribed by the TWOC. This wage amounted to a 4¢ per hour raise, and 10 holidays were granted as well.

William Skinner’s children continued his mill and his philanthropy. During the Depression Joseph Skinner donated fresh milk from his South Hadley dairy farm to the Holyoke center for welfare distribution, and produce from the farm was sold at cost to his employees. A worker would place his order at the mill, and on the next day a truck would deliver fresh milk and vegetables to his door.

Joseph’s sister, Catherine, paid the tuition of one girl who worked as a mill hand, as author Ella Merkel Decarlo notes in her Holyoke - Chicopee: A Perspective, enabling her to go to business school. Catherine and their other sister, Belle, founded the Skinner Coffee House as the most practical and perhaps the most humane way benefiting the women factory workers. (For more on Belle Skinner’s efforts to rebuild a war-torn village in France after World War I, have a look at this previous post.)

The Skinner Coffee House, founded on Main Street in 1902, was a place of respite for female mill hands.

At the turn of the century, 10 and 12 hour days were the norm. The Skinner Coffee House with its quiet and gentle, homelike atmosphere, unlike poorer conditions of their own homes, contained a reception hall with a piano, divans and chairs, a ping-pong table, and another room for writing, reading, and sewing. The women could spend their lunch periods there, and children would learn to sew, and play. By 1916, the Coffee House and become an institution in Holyoke, and at its new location on Main and Hamilton Streets, Mary E. Willey, president of Mount Holyoke College spoke at the rededication ceremony.

“It embodies the physical ideal, in its cafeteria and public bath; the educational and recreational ideal in classes, lectures and entertainments, in music and dramatic performances, the home ideal by instruction and dressmaking in millinery and domestic science, and particularly by the mother’s meetings, with practical talks by doctors and nurses and the not less practical widening of the horizon by glimpses of other people and lands.

“Above all, it will be a home…”

Americanization classes were held for those immigrants who wanted to learn English. The members also contributed the culture of their origins in clubs organized at the Coffee House, the Italian Woman’s club, the Negro Woman’s club, the Greek club and an international group made up of Poles, Greeks, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Italian, and French women. During the Depression the Coffee House provided services for those seeking employment. It was suspended in May 1940 as a social service whose usefulness was now outdated. It was donated by the family to the city, and thereafter used as a clinic and neighborhood center.

When by the 1940s, much had changed in the Skinner company in the way of unions and wages, and company expansions, but not in leadership. When William Skinner died in February 1902, his sons William and Joseph continued the management of the company and brought the old silk manufacturing trade of their fathers English and Huguenot forebears into the 20th century. Their first New York City office for sales was opened by the son William Skinner in 1876 on Broadway. His son, William, spent much of his time there as head of that office.

Joseph Skinner managed the manufacturing and the family business end in Holyoke, the name of which was changed again back to the William Skinner Manufacturing Company. The original mill had been enlarged, and the second mill building was erected on Broad Street. During the Depression, the Skinners announced confidently that the mill would not close, and it did not.

The 1939 New York City World’s Fair, Skinner impressed fashion-conscious world as it had at the 1876 exposition. The theme of the 1939 World’s Fair was the World of Tomorrow. Instead of succumbing to fantastic illusions about a science fiction world, as so many other exhibitors did to impress Depression crowds, Skinner’s chose to illustrate the promise of industry with a display that confidently showed the spirit of today.

The Skinner company’s greatest legacy from its founder was its ability to adapt to the moment, proud of its heritage, and yet not obsessed with only the past and its imagined infinite glories. Even the future was sometimes not important as the squarely-faced present. During World War II, the company manufactured silk parachutes, and produced twill fabric for the special uniforms of parachute troops.

When Joseph Skinner died in 1946 and William in 1947, the firm’s management was continued by four grandsons of William Skinner: Stewart Kilborne, William H. Hubbard, William Skinner II, and George Gibson. By 1956 the Skinner mills has ceased manufacturing silk, and the mills were used to house smaller firms. Operations ceased, and the firm was bought by Indian Head Mills, incorporated in 1961. This company closed soon after.

At its end, the Skinner company had been the longest operating family-owned business in Holyoke. Its demise, the result of several considerations, coincided with the technical revolution visiting American industry in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The silk mill, with its several floors of mechanical looms was operated according to a process which it changed little from the early 19th century. The world outside, and the market, and technology, had changed greatly.

For more on William Skinner, and photos of the mill interior, have a look at this Wistariahurst museum website.

Sources include:

Boston Sunday Post

Holyoke-Chicopee: A Perspective by Ella Merkel DiCarlo (Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, Holyoke, Mass.)

Holyoke Old and New (Dillion Printing)

Holyoke Past and Present (Transcript Publishing)

Holyoke Telegram

Holyoke Transcript

Men of New England, ed. Winfield Scott Downs, Lit.D., Vol. 1 (American History Company, Inc. NY, 1941).

Picturesque Hampden, ed. Charles F. Warner

Springfield Republican

Springfield Weekly Journal

The Story of Textiles by Perry Walton

True Light

Western Mass. - A History by Rev. John Lockwood

Wistariahurst Collection, Holyoke, Massachusetts

Briggs Opera House - White River Junction, Vermont

2012-01-03T07:44:00.000-05:00

Here, photographed in warmer days, is the Briggs Opera House of White River Junction, Vermont. It is a small, but vibrant, theater nestled in a great battleship of a building, the Gates-Briggs Building on North Main Street.

The building has stood here since 1890, and the theater, once called the Gates Opera House, was for many decades home to concerts, rallies, ceremonies, boxing and other sports, community theatre, and survived a fallow period from the mid 1980s until 1997 when the Northern Stage theatre company took over.

Any community is fortunate to have live theater, especially so to have it grace a stately building right in its downtown.

The Northern Stage produces a full season of plays and musicals. Its current show, “Annie” runs through this Sunday, January 8th.

Here’s the remainder of the season:

“Les Liaisons Dangereuses”

by Christopher Hampton, from the novel by Choderlos de Laclos

January 18 - February 5, 2012

As the French Revolution approaches, a treacherous man and woman devise a cruel game intended to betray a married woman and a young lady fresh from a convent.

“M. Butterfly”

by Henry David Hwang

February 15 - March 4, 2012

A French diplomat, caught up in the swirl of Maoist China in the 1960s, becomes obsessed with a Chinese opera performer, leading to mystery, diplomatic intrigue and a star-crossed 20-year romance. Based on real events, this Broadway sensation won the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Best Play and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

“Red”

by John Logan

March 14 - April 1, 2012

New York, 1958. In a tension-filled studio, painter Mark Rothko works furiously to complete a definitive work for an extraordinary setting. As the huge project takes shape, his internal struggle to reconcile his growing wealth with his artistic integrity threatens to destroy him.

“Chicago”

Book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, Music by John Kander, Lyrics by Fred Ebb, based on the play by Maurine Dallas Watkins

April 11 - May 6, 2012

Shocking secrets are revealed in this story of crime, greed and corruption. Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, showgirls convicted of murder, fight for attention in the press. From "All That Jazz" to "Razzle Dazzle," the songs are as hot as the Prohibition-era setting.

For more on Northern Stage, have a look at this website.

After-Christmas Sales - 1901

2011-12-27T08:19:00.000-05:00

This ad from December 28, 1901 shows us that after-Christmas sales are nothing new. They may not have featured shoppers pummeling each other to get to the markdowns on the furs listed in this advertisement in this Holyoke, Massachusetts store. Or even at Johnson's Bookstore below in Springfield (well known to generations of western Massachusetts shoppers) for their marked down books.

But for 4-cent children's books -- it might just be well worth knocking your fellow shoppers to the floor.

Nah. I guess not.

We know there was less disposable income in those days for the average folk. Perhaps that bred civility. Let's hope it may do the same for us in the long run.

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

2011-12-20T06:27:00.000-05:00

“It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” first appeared in print as a poem in the Boston Christian Register, a few days after Christmas in 1849. Edmund Sears, pastor of the Unitarian, First Parish Church in Wayland, Massachusetts wrote it.

Sears was originally from the western Massachusetts town of Sandisfield. The following year, 1850, composter Richard Storrs Willis wrote the tune that is most often played to this song in the US. (The United Kingdom has another melody to this song.)

Here is the poem Mr. Sears wrote that became one of most popular traditional Christmas carols:

It came upon the midnight clear,

That glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth,

To touch their harps of gold:

"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,

From heaven's all-gracious King."

The world in solemn stillness lay,

To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,

With peaceful wings unfurled,

And still their heavenly music floats

O'er all the weary world;

Above its sad and lowly plains,

They bend on hovering wing,

And ever o'er its Babel sounds

The blessèd angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife

The world has suffered long;

Beneath the angel-strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not

The love-song which they bring;

O hush the noise, ye men of strife,

And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,

Whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow,

Look now! for glad and golden hours

come swiftly on the wing.

O rest beside the weary road,

And hear the angels sing!

For lo!, the days are hastening on,

By prophet bards foretold,

When with the ever-circling years

Comes round the age of gold

When peace shall over all the earth

Its ancient splendors fling,

And the whole world give back the song

Which now the angels sing.

For more on the First Parish Church in Wayland, established in 1640, have a look at this website.

Melzar Mosman - Soldier, Sculptor, and Craftsman

2011-12-13T07:29:00.002-05:00

Grant Monument, Lincoln Park, Chicago - JTLynch Photo

This is an excerpt of a speech I recently made to the Chicopee Historical Society about sculptor and bronze foundryman Melzar Mosman. I’m currently working on a book about this 19th century craftsman, and I’d love to hear from anyone who has more information. Please either leave a comment, or send me an email at: JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com.

One of the most famous founders of bronze statuary in the United States, Melzar Mosman, unique among foundrymen, was a sculptor as well.

These views are from 19th century postcards and show a different world in which the bronze statues are not yet corroded to green, and in which they are showcases in city parks and village greens. At the time they were more than memorials to fallen soldiers; they were art. Art for the community, and paid for by towns, and social and civic groups, and sometimes individuals to show their community pride.

We have the statute of General Ulysses S. Grant in Brooklyn, sculpted by William Ordway Partridge, a noted artist in his day, and cast by Melzar Mosman. This was done in 1895 in his shop called Chicopee Bronze Works in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Here is the Civil War monument Middletown, Connecticut, done in 1874, sculpted by Melzar and founded by him while Mosman was still working at the Ames Manufacturing Company.

The Ames Company, which we discussed in this previous post, is noted of course for its enormous contribution to the Mexican War and to the Civil War producing swords and armaments, light and heavy artillery. But in 1853, Ames is credited with being the first foundry in the United States to cast bronze statuary. Ames had been producing bronze cannon since the 1830s, and in the politically turbulent years of the mid-19th century, cannon took precedence over statues.

Melzar was the grandson of Silas Mosman, also called Deacon Silas, who came from Rhode Island in 1829 to find work for himself and his sons in the burgeoning factory town of Chicopee. His son, Silas, Jr. would come to superintendent the Ames foundry and became noted as a skilled caster in bronze of statuary. The highlight of his career was being asked to cast in bronze the ornamental doors to the Senate wing of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., desgined by Thomas Crawford.

Melzar was born in 1843, and when he graduated from Chicopee High School, he went to work at the Ames Manufacturing Company under the supervision of his father in the foundry. In 1862 he quit to join the Union Army.
Melzar was a private attached to Company D and served at New Bern, North Carolina. His unit clashed with the enemy in skirmishes in the Goldsboro, Kinston areas. His unit was sent to Baltimore, and Harper’s Ferry, and helped in pursuit of General Robert E. Lee when the Confederates retreated from Gettysburg. Later that month, July of 1863, Mosman’s unit was sent home and mustered out. Melzar went back to the foundry at the Ames Company and made more cannon.

After the war in 1867, he went to Europe, as most young artists and craftsmen did, to study. He went to Italy and France, worked in foundries and learned the art of casting bronze statuary. He also learned to speak Italian and French.

The Minuteman, Concord, Mass. JT Lynch Photo

He returned to the Ames foundry to work alongside his father on statuary. In 1874, they produced “The Minuteman” statue of Concord, Massachusetts. The sculptor was Daniel Chester French. Melzar gradually took over the Ames foundry from his father, and Silas, Jr. died in 1883, having retired in 1880. At the time of his death, Melzar was his only surviving child, and Melzar was destined to completely crawl out from underneath his father’s famous shadow, not only as the most sought-after foundryman in the United States, but as a sculptor in his own right.

Here is one of Melzar’s most prestigious projects, the equestrian statue of General Ulysses S. Grant in Lincoln Park, Chicago. It was dedicated in 1891. The sculptor was Louis T. Rebisso. A year after his father’s death, Melzar left the Ames Company and started his own business called Chicopee Bronze Works.

Here the Puritan Statue sculpted by Augustus St. Gaudens, one of the most famous of 19th sculptors. It was placed originally at Sterns square in 1887, then moved to its present position on State Street by the library in 1901. Mosman was once reported to have said that St. Gaudens wasa ‘Crank. He came here to see the castings we made for him, and if he did not like them, went at them with a hammer.”

The Puritan, JT Lynch photo

Here is the Westfield Civil War statue, just off the common, May 1871. Melzar sculpted this. In the newspaper account of the unveiling, he was referred to as the “modest young artist.”

Westfield, Mass., Civil War monument, JT Lynch photo

Here is General Walter Harriman in Warner, New Hampshire, 1903, which Melzar both sculpted and founded at Chicopee Bronze Works.

Gen. Harriman, NH, JT Lynch photo

Bridgeport, Connecticut. This magnificent statue is 54-feet high, and looks something like a tiered wedding cake. It was a gift by circus showman P.T. Barnum. Placed here in August 1876, Melzar is the sculptor of the bronze figures which were cast at the Ames Company. The classical roman mythical figure of a woman representing peace, and the realistic modern-day figures of the men representing soldiers and sailors. The entire monument ranges from Rennaissance Revival to Baroque in style. You’ll note an empty space in the arch on the lower level. There had been another figure of a woman there, but that statue was vandalized in 1969. Only last year, a young sculptor named Emily Bedard was hired to replace the figure, based on old photographs.

Bridgeport, CT, JT Lynch photo

Melzar lived long enough to create memorials for the fallen of two more wards. The Spanish-American War statue in Springfield from 1906.

Spanish-American War, Springfield, Mass., JT Lynch photo

The last war he commemorated was World War I, the Peace Statue in his hometown of Chicopee, which was dedicated in May 1921. It represents the classic female figure with shield and laurel wreath. A replica of the city seal is around her waist. Melzar donated his time for this statue.

When his wife died in 1923, and his daughter married and moved away, Melzar took a trip around the world. For the most part, he was content to keep his business in Chicopee where he lived, were he sang tenor in the choir at the Third Congregational Church. When he died in 1926, he was one of 6 Civil War vets left in the city.

Mosman grave, Chicopee, Mass., JT Lynch photo

He was granted, at his request, a military funeral, with taps played at the gravesite by a Chicopee Boy Scout. Ironically, his headstone is only a small, simple brownstone slab with his initials, identical to the ones of several family members together at the Grape Street Cemetery. The monuments he created for others were his true memorial.

Off Topic - Blog Tour

2011-12-10T08:21:00.000-05:00

This is just a brief update on a blog tour I've undertaken this week for my novel, "Beside the Still Waters."

I have a guest post up here at "All the Days Of" blog.

And interviews here at: Blogcritics,

Review from Here,

And Examiner.com.
The blog tour will continue this coming week.

Also, anyone who signs up for my mailing list this month - see the sidebar on my Another Old Movie Blog - will receive a coupon code for a free copy of my ebook "Myths of the Modern Man" from Smashwords.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Operation Little Vittles - Chicopee, Massachusetts

2011-12-06T06:18:00.000-05:00

An earlier version of the following essay appeared in “In Chicopee”, a publication of the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram in 1992.

In the spring of 1948 when the brittle division of wartime alliances left a new order, etching the map of with an “Iron Curtain”, the Soviet Union blockaded Berlin in the hope that the Allies would abandon it.

They did not. Within three days the Allies, headed by the United States, responded with Operation Vittles, a project which airlifted food, medicine, and fuel to the two million Berliners in the isolated French, British, and American sectors. It was more than a goodwill mission; it was a symbolic action during a bleak period of history when symbol and cant were weapons of the Cold War.

Chicopee, Massachusetts celebrated its centennial as a town that year, and found itself the center of this world event. Westover Air Force Base in the northwest section of town formed the gateway of the air bridge to Europe.

Westover pilot, 1st Lieutenant Gail S. Halversen of Utah was part of one of many crews which made round the clock flights for the relief of the desperate Berliners. Noticing the forlorn children outside the fence at Templehof Airport, Halvorsen offered them some gum, and came up with the idea that led to an unauthorized mission. He began to drop candy from his C-54 transport plane, and became known as the Candy Bomber.

In Chicopee, Mayor Edward Bourbeau and his secretary, Wilfred V. Thivierge adopted Halvorsen’s mission. Under Operation Little Vittles, Chicopee became a national clearinghouse for donations of candy to the children of Berlin.

The project, unlike Operation Vittles, was unofficial and voluntary. Personal involvement in the rescue of far-away people appealed as the most energetic and practical symbol there could be of a free people empathizing with the hardships of others, with whom they had nothing in common. Candy for the children added another dimension to the event.

The abandoned Company No. 4 firehouse on Grape and Springfield streets was cleaned up by volunteers and became the headquarters of the candy operation. Donations were sent to Chicopee from all over the country. These were gifts of candy from individuals and companies, and especially of men’s handkerchiefs which Halvorsen reported were always running low. The hankies were used as parachutes, and they floated down showers of chocolate and gum, and lollipops and Lifesavers to thousands of German kids.

Mary C. Connors, then a junior at the Our Lady of the Elms College in town, headed the committee of the Chicopee schoolchildren on making the parachutes at the firehouse. Every school in the city sent contributions and manpower, for this was mainly a project about children. There was some chest thumping about outsmarting the Reds, but most of the good will really was just good will.

In January 1949, Halvorsen visited his Candyland. He came in on the 12:30 train at the Union Station in Springfield, and Mayor Bourbeau and his staff welcomed him to Chicopee. A dinner was held for at the old Red Barn restaurant and tavern, and he spoke to the Chicopee High School students at assembly. He told Mayor Bourbeau that Chicopee had fine folks.

Superintendent of Schools John L. Fitzpatrick told Chicopee school kids that they were representatives of our democracy. Their part in representing our democracy to the children in Berlin ended after seven months of Little Vittles. The Soviet blockade of Berlin ended in May 1949.

Yesterday on my Another Old Movie Blog, I featured an essay on “The Big Lift” (1950) with Montgomery Clift and Paul Douglas, which takes us on a mission of intrigue and romantic misadventure in Berlin during the Berlin Airlift.

Off Topic - Guest Blog Post

2011-12-05T09:58:00.000-05:00

This is to announce I have a guest blog post up today at "All the Days of" - about novel writing and playwriting. This is Stop 1 on my 10-part Blog Tour featuring my novel on the Quabbin Reservoir, "Beside the Still Waters."

The rest of the schedule is up here at this site, Pump Up Your Book.

Mystery Covered Bridge

2011-11-29T07:35:00.000-05:00

This covered bridge is in New Hampshire. The photo was taken I believe in the early '90s. I'm afraid that's all I know about it. I'd like to know more. If you recognize this bridge, please leave a comment, or send me an email to JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com. Thanks.

Taftsville Covered Bridge - Woodstock, Vermont

2011-11-22T07:27:00.000-05:00

The Taftsville Covered Bridge crosses the Ottauquechee River. We’re in Woodstock, Vermont.

Build in 1836, it’s one of the oldest covered bridges in Vermont.

It’s stretches 189 feet over two spans, with a Multiple Kingpost truss. It was renovated in the 1950s, more repairs in the 1990s. Artists like to paint it. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

These pictures are from before.

In August this year, it was battered by rising floodwaters when the storm Irene made a rude and impromptu visit to New England. Though still standing, it’s unsafe for auto traffic now and closed. Here is a brief video clip showing the bridge standing up to the raging Ottauquechee. Before this, it was slated to undergo further renovation.

Plans at this point are for repairs next summer. Life goes on after storms, and sometimes, so do covered bridges.

Hal Holbrook and Mark Twain Come Home to Holyoke

2011-11-15T07:50:00.000-05:00

"Mark Twain Tonight", the one-man show created by actor Hal Holbrook is returning to Holyoke, Massachusetts where the actor got his start as a member of the Valley Players. This one-night performance will benefit the renovation of Holyoke's Victory Theatre.

The Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts acquired the property in 2009, and plans to renovate the old Victory, built in 1920, to present live theatre. "Mark Twain Tonight" will be staged this Saturday, November 19th at 8 p.m. at the Holyoke High School Sears Auditorium. Call 800-224-MIFA for ticket information, or go online at their website here.

Hal Holbrook's "Mark Twain Tonight" opened the 1957 season for Holyoke's Valley Players

Below is an article I posted originally on my Tragedy and Comedy in New England Blog and tells a bit more about the Valley Players, which produced professional summer stock on the top of Mt. Tom -- the Mountain Park Casino Playhouse -- in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts from 1941 to 1962.

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A fondly remembered summer theater company produced plays and musicals on the top of Mt. Tom in Holyoke, Massachusetts. An idyllic spot of picnic groves, restaurant, ballroom, dance pavilion, amusement park, and zoo, Mountain Park also featured a theater called the Casino. At one time, it was the home of what was reputed to be the largest summer theater in New England.

From 1941 through 1962, the Casino was home to The Valley Players, a theatre company which helped nurture, or even launch the careers of many young actors, Hal Holbrook among them, who first performed his famous one-man show “Mark Twain Tonight” here. Future Tony nominee and native of nearby Westfield Anne Pitoniak appeared here as well.

Mountain Park was created in the late 19th century when the first train and trolley and mountain tram cars made their way up Mt. Tom. An early vaudeville theater was built here, later replaced by the Casino. In 1911 the Casino Stock Company produced stage plays here, but folded after one season. Vaudeville acts and silent movies shown at the Casino drew in the crowds. Stage plays were attemped again in 1924, and a 1935 renovation of the Casino led to more plays here showcased by the Works Progress Administration (more on the WPA theatre project another time). One Depression-era member of the company was future film star Wendell Corey.

Carlton and Jean Guild created the Valley Players here in 1941. They had been involved in other New England summer theaters, and along with collegues Dorothy Crane, Lauren Gilbert and his wife Jackson Perkins, Walter Coy, Louise Mudgett and Joseph Foley, were looking for a site for a new company. All would function on the administrative staff or perform in many of the plays produced by the Valley Players, or both. Joseph Foley went on to do some live television, was Gabriel Gurney the principal for the first season of “Mr. Peepers”, until his untimely death in the summer of 1955 in Holyoke.

The Valley Players was an Equity stock company. During 1943 Mountain Park was closed due to the wartime gas rationing. The heyday for the Valley Players was throughout the 1950s (coinciding with what is generally perceived as the golden age of summer theatre in New England), but the dawn of the 1960s brought rising production costs, lower attendance, and the curtain was brought down in 1962 with Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie.”

Mountain Park closed in 1987.

Here are a few programs from The Valley Players. “Bell, Book & Candle” with Hal Holbrook was the final production of 1953. “Holiday” from July 1954 featured Si, (later billed as Simon) Oakland, later seen in many future film and TV productions. Hal Holbrook also appeared in “The Velvet Glove” July 1953, one of his earliest appearances with The Valley Players. The following month he had a part in “The Happiest Days of Your Life”.

Ralph Edwards, who at the time was the host of the “Truth or Consequences” gameshow on radio, and would also be the host when this show eventually moved to television, appeared in “Nothing But the Truth” in August 1942.

I’d love to hear from anyone who attended a show by The Valley Players, or was involved in any way in their productions.

Happy Halloween?

2011-11-01T08:14:00.000-04:00

No trick or treaters last night for the first time in memory. Too many downed trees, downed power lines. Downright spooky.

Hessians in North New Salem, Massachusetts

2011-10-25T08:42:00.000-04:00

On this day, like the rock says, 1,000 Hessian mercenaries passed through the small village of North New Salem in central Massachusetts. It was early days in the Revolutionary War, so any victory, such as their defeat and surrender at Saratoga, New York, was welcome news. They were marched to Boston. I wonder how many made it back to their homes in Europe, or lived to fight another day?

Berkshires - Hancock Shaker Village

2011-10-18T07:36:00.000-04:00

Autumn in the Berkshires.

The round barn at the Hancock Shaker Village.

A delicate harvest still ripening on the windowsill, Hancock Shaker Village. Have a look here at our previous post on the Hancock Shaker Village, and here at the official website.

Massachusetts Old State House - Original and One Copy

2011-10-11T07:47:00.000-04:00

A copy can sometimes tell its own original story. We mentioned the Avenue of States at the Eastern States Exposition a couple of weeks ago in this post. Above is the replica of the Old Massachusetts State House.

Here is the original. Built in 1713, it was the scene of the debate for Revolution by men such as John Hancock, James Otis, John Adams, and Sam Adams. Just outside its door one terrible night, the Boston Massacre roused a colony to rebel.

There had once been the figure of a lion atop the building’s façade, with a unicorn on the other side. These were symbols of the British monarchy. They’re not here now.

But you see them on the replica at the fairgrounds in West Springfield, which was built in 1919.

The Old Statehouse served until 1798, when the new one was built, and this building was turned over to a variety of uses, such as Boston’s city hall, a merchant exchange, and shops. Since 1881 when the Bostonian Society restored the building, it has served as a museum, one of the stops on the Freedom Trail.

The replica, back in western Mass., is noted for selling quantities of maple syrup during the fair, and for this unwieldy but impressive replica of The Mayflower.

No massacre occurred outside its door, but there are quite long lines during the fair. We may have a different sense of hardship in the 21st century.

For more on the Old Statehouse (the real one), have a look at this website.

Lincoln Covered Bridge - Woodstock, Vermont

2011-10-04T07:49:00.000-04:00

Here is the Lincoln Covered Bridge in Woodstock, Vermont. These photos were taken before Hurricane Irene, but the bridge is still safe and standing, as it has since it was built in 1877.

The bridge is open to auto traffic, one lane only, spanning the Ottauquechee River. Have a look here for more on the Lincoln Covered Bridge.

William Gillette's Castle - East Haddam, Connecticut

2011-09-27T06:21:00.000-04:00

Gillette’s Castle is a most unusual home belonging to, and built by, a most accomplished and unusual man. He was William Gillette, one of the leading actors of American theater in the 19th and early 20th centuries. His most famous portrayal was as Sherlock Holmes, and for a generation, Mr. Gillette was Sherlock to the public.

He also added a few touches to Sherlock that we now associate with the character, but that did not come from the author of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

William Gillette, 1895. Photo in the public domain.

It was William Gillette who gave Sherlock the deerstalker hat after an original Strand illustration. Gillette came up with the meerschaum pipe, changing Sherlock’s originally written straight pipe. He also came up with the exclamation, “Elementary” as in “This is elementary, my dear fellow…” which was changed in the first Sherlock Holmes movie to “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

Gillette’s creativity as a playwright, and actor, director, a producer, a stage manager also led to his inventing some stage special effects, and a few patents for such, and other gadgets like a time stamp.

View from the ferry landing below the Castle.

But his most unusual creation, and his most lasting presence, is to be found here in East Haddam, Connecticut, perched atop a hill overlooking the Connecticut River. Here he built is 184-acre estate. The stone had to be moved up the hill by a tramway he devised. It is a 24-room mansion he designed himself, completed in 1919.

With ultimate stagecraft, he created rooms with built-in couches, secret entrances, and no door exactly the same, but all crafted handsomely in oak and stone. It looks medieval, but is constructed and appointed with amazingly functional simplicity.

Outside on the extensive grounds among handsome walking trails is a narrow gauge railroad he built.

William Gillette was born in Hartford, a descendant of the founder of Hartford, Thomas Hooker. His last performance was at the Bushnell Theater, in Hartford, in 1936. He died in 1937, and the State of Connecticut purchased the property in 1943. Gillette’s wife had died before him, and they had no children.

For more on the Gillette Castle State Park, have a look at this website.

View from the Castle terrace looking westward. You can see the other ferry landing on the opposite side of the river.

The view from the terrace looking southward down the Connecticut River.

Below are a couple of short clips on William Gillette. (Don’t forget to scroll down to the bottom of the page to pause the music so you can hear the videos.)

The Big E - West Springfield, Massachusetts

2011-09-20T08:03:00.000-04:00

For those of you who can't get to West Springfield, Massachusetts for the Eastern States Exposition (the "Big E"), here's a quick trip around the fair.

The Big E, for those of you beyond New England, is a state fair in which all six New England states participate. An iconic signature of the fair is the Avenue of States, where replicas of the original statehouse buildings of each state are popular attractions. Inside, information, local food (see lobster, chowder, maple syrup, pies, etc) and manufactured products are on display and for sale.

Think of it as a kind of Epcot Center for New England, where you can travel all the six states in an hour or two.

There is also Storrowton, of course, another permanent attraction on the fairgrounds with actual 19th century buildings restored and re-created here as a New England village.

The rest of the fair is food and livestock, prize-winning vegetables, handicrafts, artwork, cooking demonstrations, and miracle mops. Try to get here if you can, the fair runs until October 2nd this year.

For more on the Big E, have a look at this previous post, and at the official website here.

End of Summer - Wells and Ogunquit, Maine

2011-09-13T07:54:00.000-04:00

The surf at Wells Beach, Maine, where only the scarcity of swimmers may indicate this is the end of summer.

King of all he surveys from a height of about nine or ten inches, this seagull may regret the end of summer, if only because he has fewer opportunities to mooch off beach-goers.

Down the road in Ogunquit, this single rosebud on The Marginal Way is more optimistic about plenty of summer left to come.

The Last Rose of Summer by Thomas Moore:

"'TIS the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
To give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Loves shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?"

Summer beaches

2011-09-06T07:32:00.000-04:00

The New England shoreline is not so firm or impregnable as these rocks around Westerly, Rhode Island would seem to indicate. The shoreline is moving thing, that alters with each storm, sometimes a lot and sometimes only a little.

They know about such things over at Chatham, Massachusetts, where the sand bars dance with the ocean and the beach departs without so much as a goodbye.

Still, it seems that summer is eternal, even when it is gradually leaving us. It will come back next year, and until then be stored in our memory, as will the beach, just as it was when we last saw it.

Bridge of Flowers - Shelburne Falls, Mass

2011-08-30T07:39:00.000-04:00

Here is the Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls, western Massachusetts on another beautiful fall day. Our beautiful fall tourist season is fast approaching, though with a few less trees this year. Just this past weekend with Hurricane, then Tropical Storm Irene, the Bridge of Flowers faced another weather challenge from the rapidly rising Deerfield River.

Rivers become angry, scary creatures in the wake of too much rain or snow melt, and as we have often seen, can do terrific damage. Smaller hill towns can find themselves isolated, without power, emergency assistance, or escape. Irene could have been much worse, but a storm is never a good thing under the best of circumstances. In the past, the odd hurricanes that meander up here often destroy businesses that never reopen. It is sometimes easier for us to put a number on the horrific loss of life than it is to account for jobs and income lost.

We don’t know yet what the extent of damage and loss still occurring in Vermont. Many communities are isolated from washed-out roads. Some of Vermont’s celebrated covered bridges are damaged or swept away.

The Bridge of Flowers may have a happier fate. It has a modest history, the pride of this small town of Shelburne Falls. It had been a trolley bridge built in 1908 by the Shelburne Falls & Colrain Street Railway. It connected Shelburne Falls and Buckland across the Deerfield River. The trolley company went bankrupt in 1927 (another flood year, as it happens), when more people and goods began to be transported by car and truck. You can see the old restored No. 10 trolley and more info at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum. Have a look at this website.

The year after the trolley bridge was discontinued, in a series of public spiritedness and plain good ideas, the bridge was bought by the Shelburne Falls Fire District, and the Shelburne Falls Woman’s Club sponsored a project to turn the old railway bridge into a unique garden. In the spring of 1929, loads of loam and fertilizer were laid out on the bridge, and donated labor created a garden and a pathway through which one could stroll from Buckland to Shelburne Falls along one of the prettiest routes ever created.

In the earlier 1980s, the community again banded together to restore the aging Bridge of Flowers. For more information on the Bridge of Flowers, have a look here.

In weeks to come I’ll try to post more on some of Vermont’s covered bridges, both ones that were swept away and those that remain. Unfortunately, it will take some weeks for the Green Mountain State to even assess the ruin left by Tropical Storm Irene. One can only speculate at this time if their upcoming beautiful fall tourist season may be one of those casualties.

Constitution House - Windsor, Vermont

2011-08-23T07:31:00.000-04:00

Here at Elijah West’s tavern in Windsor, Vermont along the Connecticut River, the locals decided in July of 1777 to make this place a free and independent republic. There were a few things to iron out of course, land grants claimed by New Hampshire across the river, and claims by New York on the other side (independence from its neighbors more than independence from Great Britain was the main issue at this stage), and then this whole Revolutionary War hullabaloo. Also, a few months earlier it was decided in a preliminary vote to call the whole prospect “New Connecticut”.

But (we may presume) over a tankard or two, they got down to business and decided that Vermont would be the name (a derivation of the French verd mont -- green mountains), and that their constitution would be a bit different to what had been hammered out by the other states. Vermont was the first to outlaw slavery, and to assure universal voting rights for men whether or not they owned property. Vermont was also the first to establish free public schools.

Having got that out of the way, it was another decade after the Revolutionary War ended that they got around to shedding their Republic and joining the United States in 1791. Vermonters like to be sure, and they seem to have decided the USA was going to work out all right.

For more on the Constitution House, now a museum, have a look at this website.

The Current Rate of Exchange

2011-08-16T07:16:00.000-04:00

My latest novel, "The Current Rate of Exchange" is now available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. For a limited time, the books is FREE on Smashwords, and currently at 99 cents through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, however I expect at some point those other two stores will match Smashwords' price and also make it FREE. For a limited time.

The novel is a little silly, a little serious, about an American woman's post-9/11 journey to New Zealand. Here's the blurb:

Rose, a tall, bumbling American woman, travels to New Zealand to re-establish ties with her late mother’s family, navigating the otherworldly tension of traveling in the months after 9/11. With an offbeat spirit of adventure and optimism, Rose discovers the better angels not only her nature, but in those around her.

Her ill-planned adventure turns her life around, and that of Nora, her New Zealand cousin, whose family problems immediately begin to involve Rose. Nora’s elderly mother, who broke off ties with Rose’s family; Nora’s unemployed husband who confides his dreams to Rose instead of his wife; and Nora’s brother whose emotional meltdown when losing the family farm all challenge Rose to face her family’s past and try to mend a bitter loss.

A sudden romance with the farm manager with the mysterious past of his own was not on her original agenda. She is anxious about continuing it lest she repeat mistakes her American father and New Zealand mother made. Armed with old family letters, Rose also manages to trace her mother’s footsteps as a World War II government agricultural worker, or Land Girl. In a moment of crisis, the information Rose learns from her mother’s letters might prevent a tragedy in Nora’s family.

Available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and currently FREE at Smashwords.

Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire

2011-08-09T08:08:00.000-04:00

Lake Sunapee still wears the mysterious aura of rugged gentility. Rent yourself a canoe and paddle out to the middle, jostled lightly in the wake of a passing motorboat perhaps, but still serene enough to imagine the ghosts of steamships around you, passengers leaning over the rail dressed in summer white.

Back in the 19th century, wealthy summer visitors came here by train, and then crossed the lake on steamer ferries to the grand hotel of their choice. There were several from which to choose.

A replica of the old MV Kearsarge (the original began operation in 1897) plies the gentle waters here and gives narrated tours of the history of the lake, exploring its coves and the single lighthouse.

The beach here is not always this empty, but if you come early you can stake out a spot for your towel, your chair, your umbrella, and your sense of bliss. The lake is over 4,000 acres, so there’s plenty of room to swim, ride out in that canoe, or in the Kearsarge.

Most of the Victorian grand hotels are gone, but the sense of a perfect place to escape remains.

For more on Mt. Sunapee State Park, have a look here, and here.

The Connecticut River Mouth - No City, Only Sound

2011-08-02T07:57:00.000-04:00

This is a remarkable place. This is the mouth of the Connecticut River. When Dutch navigator Adrien Block first sighted this place in 1614, we may imagine it looked similar to what it does today. The Connecticut River is rare among major rivers of the US in that no large city developed where it begins.

There’s just this.

Serene and natural, with nary a skyscraper or refinery in sight.

Now, how did that happen?

This is largely due to a geologic trait. The river carries an enormous amount of silt, as far away as from where it starts in northern New England, and sweeps it down through the hinterland, dumping it at the mouth, creating a sandbar here where it joins Long Island Sound. The silt deposits were a challenge to navigation in the early days, clogging up the works, so the speak, and so made for an inopportune spot for a metropolis.

Boston has its Charles River, and New York City its Hudson and East River. Philadelphia has its Schuylkill, and D.C. its Potomac.

The Connecticut River has instead a less auspicious, but more peaceful paradise.

The river has had its ups and downs over the years (literally, as the Algonquin word “quinetucket” means long tidal river - which it is as far as Windsor Locks near the Massachusetts border). The repository of waste from factories and human habitation left the river in dismal shape some 50 years ago. Today, through extensive cleanup and conservation measures, it has been upgraded to class B, fit for swimming and for fishing.

Here with the towns of Old Saybrook on one side and Old Lyme on the other, you can take out your boat, or sit on the dock to fish, or just stand on the banks on one of those eternal, golden summer days and let your eyes wander on what Adrien Block’s eyes saw, and agree with him that this river begs to be explored.

Flags in the Old North Church - Boston, Massachusetts

2011-07-26T07:44:00.000-04:00

Inside Boston's Old North Church the flag of New England, and the flag of the United States (when there were quite a few less states). The bold colors of the flags stand out from the pristine white of the ceiling and columns, and the pure white natural light coming in from the clear windows. We always equate the Old North Church with Paul Revere's famous ride during the opening days of the Revolutionary War (see this previous post here).

But it's modern day solace, quietly keeping the faith and the heritage, is just as monumental, if more serene.

Summer stock, July 1935

2011-07-19T07:32:00.000-04:00

The second week of July 1935 brought another round of traveling actors to New England’s numerous summer stock theaters (or town halls or barns, or whatever happened to serve as a theater in those golden months between mud and snow).

Most of the players on stage were unknowns then and continued to be unknown, but a few, like character actress Mary Wickes, who appeared in a supporting role in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in John Willard’s mystery “The Cat and the Canary”, would become familiar to moviegoers in the coming decades.

Down in Westport, Connecticut, stage veteran Ina Claire wowed first-nighters in “Ode to Liberty” by Sidney Howard, in which she had appeared on Broadway the year before. The New York Times critic noted, “Miss Claire received an ovation at each curtain.”

Ina Claire appeared in very few movies, but you may remember her as Dorothy McGuire’s mother in “Claudia” (1943), and playing opposite Greta Garbo in “Ninotchka” (1939) as The Duchess Swana. She began her career in vaudeville, working her way up to the Ziegfeld Follies. Summer stock in Connecticut wasn’t too good for her.

Over in Cohasset, Massachusetts, a comedy “Meet the Prince” by A.A. Milne, who is probably more familiar to most people as the author of the “Winnie-the-Pooh” stories, played to a capacity audience.

Down in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, the Town Hall was the venue for the drama “As Husband’s Go”, where, according to The New York Times, “The cast received numerous curtain calls.”

Over in Branford, Connecticut, the Stony Creek Players performed “Tea for Three”. Up in Skowhegan, Maine, Frankie Thomas of Hollywood B-movies and the future “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet” on TV played in “Remember the Day” with the Lakewood Players. One of the auspicious members of the audience that evening was Humphrey Bogart.

It was an era when staying at home on a summer evening shut up in air conditioning was not favored, and not possible. The summer dress, the white trousers, the straw hats were donned and each newcomer to the audience was announced by the slap of the screen door in the back of the house (or barn, or town hall, or tent) where they sold tickets.

Even more telling and poignant, is that The New York Times gave space to summer stock performers and audiences in small towns in New England that warm second week of July 1935.

Amtrak 40th Anniversary Exhibit Train

2011-07-12T07:29:00.000-04:00

This past weekend the special Amtrak exhibit train rolled into Union Station in Springfield, Massachusetts. There are six more scheduled stops throughout New England this summer, so if you missed this event, you’ll have many more chances to see it.

Amtrak, the national railroad service for the United States, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, and as part of the celebration, this several-car special train is being sent as a kind mobile museum on tour of some of the towns and cities Amtrak services. Climb aboard and walk through four decades worth of nostalgia and memorabilia. Equipment and vintage ads are displayed, menus and dinnerware from the past in the lounge car, uniforms, photographs and videos to see.

There were some freebees offered by staff on the platform, and items for sale in the “store” car on the end.

Lots of train buffs meandered through the train and all around it, taking photos, and kids sharing the grownups’ love of trains. All of this activity much to the surprise of the passengers alighting with their rolling suitcases from the regular train that pulled into the station as this event was going on.

Each weekend for the next six weeks gives New Englanders a chance to catch up with the special exhibit train. Here are the upcoming stops:

Union Station - New Haven, Connecticut: July 16-17.

Union Station - New London, Connecticut: July 23-24.

Amtrak Station - Providence, Rhode Island: July 30-31.

South Station - Boston: August 6-7.

Depot Avenue - Freeport, Maine: August 13-14.

Main Street - Burlington, Vermont: August 20-21.

After that, it’s Albany, New York and points west. For more about Amtrak’s special exhibit train and the 40th anniversary celebration, have a look at this website.

Outer Light - Old Saybrook, Connecticut

2011-07-05T07:06:00.000-04:00

It seems a long way out, the Saybrook Breakwater Light, also known as the Outer Light, but it’s only about 3,000 feet from the Lynde Point Light we discussed in this previous post.

Placed here in a sandbar, later linking to the shore with a stone jetty, the Outer Light was established in June, 1886. One of its most memorable events was when lighthouse keeper Sidney Gross noticed a sudden breeze from the southeast on the afternoon of September 21, 1938, perhaps one of the first New Englanders to catch a warning sign (utterly without knowing it) of the horrific Hurricane of 1938, discussed in a three-part series, beginning here.

The hurricane took much away from the Connecticut coast that afternoon, but left the Outer Light tower.

The light was automated in 1959. For more on the Saybrook Breakwater Light or Outer Light, have look at this website.

Poli's Palace - Springfield, Massachusetts

2011-06-28T07:34:00.000-04:00

Above is the bill of acts for the Poli’s Palace in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1917. At this time, the Poli Palace was a vaudeville theater, but entrepreneur Sylvester Z. Poli was among the first to introduce movies to his theaters. So, right after Evelyn Elkins “singing comedienne” performs live, we are treated to a silent Western “Their Compact” starring Francis X. Bushman.

This post originally appeared on my Tragedy and Comedy in New England blog. We follow up from last week's images of the 1906 Poli theatre stock company.

The flickers and the “legitimate stage” share an audience, and presumably, worlds collide.

Not that vaudeville was ever really considered “legitimate” stage, but Poli, an Italian immigrant who made his fortune through a string of theaters he owned, most located in New England, intended that his vaudeville theaters provide, according to a publication of the day called “S.Z. Poli’s Theatrical Enterprises”, quoted in The Papers of Will Rogers - Wild West and Vaudeville, Volume II (ed. Arthur Frank Wertheim and Barbara Bair, University of Oklahoma Press, 2000, p. 404) “devoted to progressive and polite vaudeville.”

We can’t be certain how progressive singing comedienne Evelyn Elkins was, but she was probably polite.

Will Rogers toured the Poli chain of theaters in 1908, and came to Sylvester Poli’s Springfield theater in February of that year. The theater was located at 286 Worthington Street, and after having its name changed to the Park Theatre in 1913, was destroyed in a fire in 1914. Poli was already busy building a new theater, called Poli’s Palace, a little farther down the street at 192-194 Worthington. This theater would continue as a vaudeville house, and after some years of sharing its audience with silent films, would eventually be turned over completely to that new medium when the talkies arrived, and Poli merged his chain with the Loew’s Corporation in 1934.

Vaudeville had its own hierarchy of “top banana” comics, and lesser acts that “played to haircuts” (meaning people walked out on them, so all the performers saw was the backs of their heads). There were “small-time” vaudeville theaters and “big-time”. In Springfield, Poli’s would have been considered small-time, compared to the vaudeville acts that were booked for the more prestigious Court Square Theater in town, which would carry an odd week or two of vaudeville in between legitimate stage shows.

The Shuberts, Keith, Albee and William Morris, all top vaudeville bookers who, regulated by the Vaudeville Managers Association, collected acts to run on the country’s regional vaudeville circuits. Springfield’s Pat Shea, one manager on the New England circuit, helped start the United Booking Office, a clearing house for vaudeville acts.

In February 1922, Shubert’s “High Class Vaudeville” played the Court Square Theater, and fifth on the bill was “Whipple and Huston.” Walter Huston, who later went on to movie fame, at this time played in comedy sketches with his wife, Bayonne Whipple.

Over at Poli’s Palace, there were lesser known acts, like the Harvey-Devora Trio, which billed themselves as “Grotesque Singing and Dancing Novelty.” We cannot be certain if “grotesque” was added to attract attention, or was merely an honest assessment of their abilities.

Things were more hopefully put with Bixley & Lerner, who called themselves “The Melba and Caruso of Vaudeville.”

Spectacular acts were saved for last, “show-closers”, and on July 13, 1914, Gilmore & Castle, “Blackface Singing and Talking Comedians” (yes, they could also talk), were followed by show-closer Hassan Ben Ali’s Troupe.

In his American Vaudeville: It’s Life and Times (NY: Dower Pub., Inc. 1968), author Douglas Gilbert noted of the Troupe, “Their handsprings were never springy, and their tumbling was wild, reckless, effortless. American acrobats could never approach them. At the end of the act Ali held the entire troupe on his head, shoulders, and arms. Then, at curtain, they would take off like pigeons, throwing themselves, so it seemed, out into space. The illusion was perfect. This was the best of the alley oops and no act has beaten it since.”

Box seats were 50 cents at the Poli’s Palace (orchestra seats were double that at Court Square), but if half a buck was still too steep, you could sit in the balcony for 10 cents.

Sylvester Poli, incidentally, was among the first theater owners to construct a single cantilevered balcony in this building, built in 1913.

Vaudeville ran with a new bill every week at Poli’s from Labor Day through May 30th, when summer stock would take over. Poli had his own traveling theater group, called the Poli Players, that would tour his theaters. One future film actress to get her start with the Poli Players was Gladys George.

Sylvester Poli, known not only for adding to his chain of theaters, but remodeling old ones, built the Poli Memorial Theater in 1927. The Springfield Republican noted in December 1926, “Modeled, to some extent, after the elaborate Metropolitan picture theater in Boston, its stage and auditorium will be suitable to legitimate productions, vaudeville, and motion pictures.”

The might be what’s known as having it all, but we never have anything for very long. Vaudeville was dead by 1930, and the talkies carried what would be known as the Loew’s Poli theater for the remainder of the decade and beyond, until that distant day when downtown theaters would be replaced by suburban cinemas.

But for a good while, one could ride the trolley on Main Street, get off on Worthington and walk up to the Poli’s Palace to see Archie Onri “The Original Juggling Genius assisted by Miss Dolly”, and Rohem’s Athletic Girls, which featured feminine exhibitions in “Fencing, Wrestling, and Bag Punching,” or the ever popular Spencer & Williams “Singing and Dancing Duo.”

Later, Loew’s Poli showed first-run MGM films for another generation.

Note: The photos of the exterior and interior of Poli's Palace are from postcards posted on the Image Museum site. The programs and tickets are from my collection.

The Poli Stock Company - 1906

2011-06-21T08:49:00.000-04:00

Paula Gloy may have been the most well-known of the Poli Stock Company of 1906. She at least, among other alumni of that stock theatre troupe that performed at the string of Poli theaters in New England, can be traced to other more prestigious roles on Broadway.

Here is a set of promotional postcards published by Sylvester Z. Poli, theatre impresario, to attract audiences, and serve as souvenirs to fans. The obverse:

At some point in that 1906 season, Paula Gloy left for another minor part on Broadway, in the farce “Cousin Louisa.” From the acerbic drama critic (is there any other kind?) of the New York Dramatic Mirror, May 12, 1906:

“Paula Gloy was rather unattractive as Florence, though she extracted some comedy from the situations in the second and third acts.”

Though Paula Gloy left a footprint on Broadway in a string of plays from about 1900 to about 1907, we haven’t too much information on Ruth Blake.

Or the handsome Sidney Irving.

Or this unnamed actor from the 1907 season.

Here is an actress in costume for her role as “Le Domino Rouge”, which played at the Poli’s Springfield, Massachusetts theater the week of January 29, 1906. The play was made into a silent film in 1909.

Here are the players in a candid group shot for Poli’s 1906 company.

We’ll have more next week on the Poli Palace of Springfield, Massachusetts.

My thanks go to Gail Watson for finding, and sharing these postcards.

Pledge of Allegiance - Westfield, Massachusetts

2011-06-14T07:42:00.000-04:00

For this Flag Day, we have to assume the flag is flying on top of the ship's mast flagpole behind this small monument. We are on the common in Westfield, Massachusetts. For now, let's draw our attention to just the granite stone and the Pledge of Allegiance on the handy plaque, like a bronze cue card in case we have forgotten.

America's Stonehenge - Salem, New Hampshire

2011-06-07T07:58:00.000-04:00

It is a mystery, still being discovered. “America’s Stonehenge” in Salem, New Hampshire is a site of caves and rock formations, and stone placements that appear to be an astronomically aligned calendar marking, and predicting, lunar and solar events. It is at least 4,000 years old, and is reckoned to probably be the oldest man-made structure in the United States.

We do not know who set these stone formations, but a variety of artifacts from a variety of eras in mankind’s timeline in North America are found here.

Stone tools, pottery, stone and bone pendants, artifacts from ancient Native Americans, and from the Colonial period. This site was also used, because of its caves and its isolation, as a hiding place on the Underground Railroad in the 19th century.

There are over 350 such megalithic sites in New England, and we are learning more about them. Prior to archeological study in the 20th century, they were only hidden spots, or known about through local legend and tales, and gossip. Strange things seen there, strange things imagined. We’ve passed through the era of myth and legend into the age of discovery, and this brings with it newfound awe and wonder for a people who lived here long ago.

The property on which this megalithic site sits is a private outdoor museum, and open to the public year-round. Have a look here at the website for more information.

War Memorials - Concord, Massachusetts

2011-05-31T07:38:00.000-04:00

Here are just the plaques on the town war memorial in Concord, Massachusetts.

The memorial dates from the Civil War, which gave us Memorial Day, so we start there. Some towns have a few names for the Spanish-American War.

Then the World War took more men from town, and added some names to the town monument.

Then World War II did the same, for some towns, a lot of names. A small addendum for the Korean War, another for Vietnam. Here we have one name for the conflict in the Dominican Republic. Not too many people remember our invasion there in 1965, where some 44 Americans were killed.

Some towns have separate monuments for the fallen of separate wars, and some have the names of all the fallen clustered in a small granite and bronze universe, with only a new wreath every summer to mark the time denied them. That their names are permanently fixed here is perhaps more a comfort to us than to them.

More recent wars, and newer plaques, because the need to honor them never diminishes, just as the pain of their loss never fades.

Myths of the Modern Man

2011-05-17T06:36:00.000-04:00

This is to announce my latest novel published as an ebook through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and Smashwords: MYTHS OF THE MODERN MAN.

A late 21st century time traveler battles bards, druids, warrior queens, and Roman cohorts for survival during the Celtic rebellion against the Romans in Britannia, 60 AD. Fun for all.

Time traveler John Moore’s fate is determined by four women: the Celtic warrior queen Boudicca; Tailtu, a gentle slave purchased from another clan; Dr. Eleanor Roberts, a severe, jealous and brilliant woman who spearheads the time travel mission; and enigmatic Dr. Cheyenne L’esperance, herself a time traveler from an even more distant future. Moore’s mission to survive three battles against the Roman legions coincides with survival tactics and backstabbing in the modern government department. The savage past clashes swords with the desperate future in a time continuum of treachery. All this, and a smattering of Latin for $2.99! What a deal!

For those without a Nook or a Kindle or other e-reading device, the Kindle software can be downloaded to your computer for FREE (see link in the sidebar), or you can download the novel from Smashwords in a variety of formats that you can read right off your computer.

Please visit my Another Old Movie Blog this coming Thursday for the coupon code to download your copy of MYTHS OF THE MODERN MAN, free for a limited time.

Essex Steam Train - Essex, Connecticut

2011-05-10T07:26:00.000-04:00

Our tribute to National Train Day is a bit delayed, but you can be sure the trains at the Essex Steam Train in Essex, Connecticut run on time. Take on ride on this historic excursion train from Essex Station to Deep River Station (where you can then take the Becky Thatcher riverboat up to Haddam and back.)

The train trip is 12 miles round trip, and is fun, educational, and glorious way to watch the seasons change in New England, chugging through some of the prettiest countryside along the Connecticut River.

This is a view that’s been enjoyed by generations of New Englanders, as far back as the first run in July of 1871. This little branch line of track has seen it all.

It had been a link in those days between the state capitol of Hartford, and the shore village of Old Saybrook. In the 1880s the Hartford & Connecticut Valley Railroad joined as a branch of the New Haven railroad.

In the 1950s when the automobile had a lot of new highways to explore, the number of passengers on the old railroad dwindled, trains ran less often. By the early 1960s, only a couple freight trains per week used the struggling railroad line. The last train ran in 1968.

Then, as it so often happens, a group of heroes, otherwise known as volunteers, worked to keep the new owners, Penn Central, from tearing up the rails of the abandoned railroad. The Penn Central leased the branch to the State of Connecticut in 1969, and the following year, the Valley Railroad Company was authorized to use over 22 miles of track for freight and passenger service. The Essex to Deep River steam train run was born.

Come ride this beautiful train excursion yourself and see what life was like on before the interstate, when small towns and villages were linked by a local railroad. For more information on the Essex Steam Train and the Valley Railroad Company, have a look at this website.

A Moment of Gratitude

2011-05-03T07:26:00.000-04:00

This giant American flag hangs in the impressive and beautiful Union Station in Cincinnati, Ohio. My post intended to celebrate this coming Saturday's National Train Day (May 7th) will be postponed until next week, when we have a look at the Essex Steam Train excursions in Connecticut.

For now, to mark the death of the terrorist Osama Bin Laden at the hands of U.S. special forces by order of President Obama, we pause under a great flag for a quiet moment of gratitude that there is one less monster in the world.

Paul Revere's Ride

2011-04-26T07:58:00.000-04:00

Before we say goodbye to April, we might recall that solid, rhythmic dirge, “On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five/Hardly a man is now alive/Who remembers that famous day and year.”

Many of us remember that famous day and year only because of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride”. We coming into several months (and years, probably), of Civil War commemorations on the 150th anniversary of that war, but one thing we might also remember is that the turmoil between the North and South, even before the war actually started, coincided with a renewed interest in the American Revolution. Longfellow’s poem, published in 1860, was part of this nostalgia for a time when American ideals seemed more cohesive and the country moved as one with a greater sense of purpose.

The Old North Church

It may not have really been that way, of course. The days of the Revolution were just as fraught with disagreement and tension among Americans as in later days, but nostalgia always makes us think the olden days were better, and people were better.

Paul Revere, though a man of some repute in Boston for being a craftsman, businessman, solid citizen, and like many of his generation, a Revolutionary War vet, really didn’t come into the national pantheon of American heroes until Longfellow made him a hero in his poem.

His deed was to be sent by Dr. Joseph Warren, on the night of April 18, 1775, to Lexington to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that they were about to be arrested by British soldiers. Revere was rowed across the Charles River from Boston to Charleston by two other revolutionaries, borrowed a horse, saw that the signal of two lanterns hanging in the church bell tower meant the British were going to cross into Cambridge over the water route rather than on the march out Boston Neck, and delivered the warning.

Then a couple of other riders joined in spreading the alarm, William Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott. The trio decided to continue on to Concord. All three of them were arrested by British soldiers, and Prescott and Dawes managed to escape, but Paul Revere was held for a time, then released, though they confiscated his borrowed horse.

We don’t hear too much about Dawes or Dr. Prescott, not having poems written about them, but Dawes’ part in the adventure is recounted here on his grave marker at the King’s Chapel Burial Ground in Boston.

Paul Revere’s grave marker, at the Old Granary Burial Ground is without any such description, but you don’t need a commemorative marker when Longfellow writes a poem about you.

Oh, and he’s also got this equestrian statue, and that’s the Old North Church in the background. As you can see, he still rides to spread the alarm to every Middlesex village and farm.

Have a look here for more on Paul Revere at this website. Longfellow’s poem is below, for we can never think of Paul Revere without thinking of the poem.

Paul Revere's Ride
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1860.

LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower, as a signal light, --
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison-bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the somber rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade, --
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"

A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay, --
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and somber and still.

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.

And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British regulars fired and fled, --
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm, --
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,
And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.

Lakewood Theater - Skowhegan, Maine

2011-04-19T07:54:00.000-04:00

On Thursday’s “Another Old Movie Blog” post we’ll have a look at “Life with Father” (1947), a film from the stage play of the same name. That play was, at the time, the longest running show on Broadway. It had its premiere at the Lakewood Theater in Skowhegan, Maine.

Since 1967 the officially declared “Maine’s State Theater”, is one of the oldest summer theaters in the country, first offering summer stock in 1901. The tourists and resident summer colony of Lake Wesserunsett would be forever changed, particularly in Lakewood’s golden years from 1925 through 1941.

Some actors and actresses who’ve trod the boards there include Mary Astor, Betty White, Milton Berle, Carol Channing, Lana Turner, Gloria Swanson, Mickey Rooney, Myrna Loy, Patty Duke, Van Johnson, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Lillian Gish, Rita Moreno, and Humphrey Bogart.

A New York Times review from July 1935, the premiere of “Remember the Day” with Frankie Thomas in the lead, Keenan Wynn in a supporting role, noted that the audience members included Humphrey Bogart. John Drew Devereaux and his mother, cousins to the famous Barrymore family, were also in attendance.

The 1939 premiere of “Life with Father” included Howard Lindsay, Dorothy Stickney, and a young Teresa Wright. John Drew Devereaux played Clarence, Jr. opposite her.

For the coming 2011 summer season at the Lakewood Theater, have a look at this website. For more on its history, have a look here.

News of the Lincoln Assassanation

2011-04-12T07:55:00.000-04:00

Back from the Northern Kentucky University Y.E.S. new play festival, where my suspense drama "One Good Turn" premiered. My gratitude and admiration goes to director Sandra Forman, and her terrific cast: Harli Cooper, Katie Berger, Caity Shipp, Seth Wallen, Stephanie Wallenfelsz, Jinkju Lim, Rex Martinez, Simon Powell, Lauren Hayes, and Hayley Powell. It was a great experience.

Now, back to New England, but with still a bit of a connection to the rest of the country -- and always a connection to the past -- as we remember the assassanation of President Abraham Lincoln this week. The President was shot April 14, 1865, on Good Friday. Below, we have the front page of the Springfield, Massachusetts Daily Union from the next day, April 15th, with the distressing news hot off the telegraph wires. The columns are edged in black, a custom at that time to indicate mourning over a death.

Springfield had a connection with the events of that tragic day through laywer George Ashmun, a friend of Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Ashmun was in Washington City that day and wanted to bring an associate to meet with Mr. Lincoln that evening. He asked Lincoln to cancel his evening at Ford's Theater. Lincoln decided to keep his plans to attend the play that night, but wrote a note for his staff:

"Allow Mr. Ashmun and friend to come in at 9 a.m. tomorrow."

We believe this was the last words Lincoln ever wrote. That night, John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger.

Springfield, just as in many communities in New England and across the north, closed stores and businesses, and church bells sounded a requiem. At the Springfield Armory, an 18-gun salute was fired at sunrise, and then a 36-gun salute was fired at sunset.

Intermission

2011-03-29T07:35:00.000-04:00

This is to announce that this blog will be going on hiatus for a couple of weeks. I’ll still respond to comments for a few days, but I’ve got some other work to tend to, and I’ll be back with a new post on Tuesday, Monday, April 12th.

A play of mine called “One Good Turn” was chosen as a winner in the Northern Kentucky University Y.E.S. Festival of Plays, so if any readers down in the Cincinnati area have some free time the weekend of April 9th through 10th, this and two other winning plays, one by Kelly Kingston Strayer, and one by Karla Jennings, will premiere. Maybe I'll see you there. The festival runs through April 17th.

Beside the Still Waters - A novel on the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir

2011-03-22T07:44:00.001-04:00

This is to announce the release of my latest novel (another one), “Beside the Still Waters”, available as an ebook from Amazon, Barnes& Noble, and Smashwords.

Four towns, gone. Dismantled slowly while their inhabitants grieve for a history and heritage that has been voted away from them. The present threatens; the future belongs to the fearless.

“Beside the Still Waters” is a family saga based on an actual event which displaced four entire towns in central Massachusetts for the construction of a reservoir. Today, the Quabbin Reservoir provides water for millions of citizens, primarily in the greater Boston area.

Families are divided between those who protest the construction project, those who give up and leave, and those who help to build it. The central character is Jenny, a girl who comes of age facing the extinction of her community, who becomes the guardian of her family’s heritage, and ultimately, the one to decide what happens to them.

A rift between two brothers, Eli and John Vaughn, at the turn of the 20^th Century continues through to the next generation as John tries to use Jenny, Eli’s daughter, in a plot to regain the family farm from Alonzo, who now runs it, who is Jenny's love. John is broke and eager to sell the farm to the state, which is buying up area property for the coming reservoir. Both Alonzo and Eli refuse to sell their properties, and protest removal by eminent domain. Torn between loyalty to her family and heritage, and the allure of a future beyond the valley, Jenny refuses to remain powerless like the men she loves, but looks for a way to take control. A disastrous decision may prove fatal in a race against time.

This ebook is currently available for 99 cents for a limited time at Amazon, Barnes &Noble, and Smashwords. For those without a reading device like the Kindle, Nook or iPad, ebooks can be downloaded and read on your computer through a variety of formats from Smashwords, and the Kindle software can be read on your computer with a free download from Amazon.

Cadmium Yellow, Blood Red

2011-03-15T08:13:00.000-04:00

This is to announce my latest novel “Cadmium Yellow, Blood Red”, available as an e-book on Amazon.com, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble.

Here’s the story:

A post-World War II “cozy” mystery about a museum heist, a missing child, a murder, a recent ex-con and an even more recent widow.

In Hartford, Connecticut, 1949, Juliet Van Allen, a museum administrator, discovers that her artist husband is having an affair with another woman. Just a wee bit shocked, Juliet slips unseen back to her office to mull over her options and wish the earth would swallow her, when she meets an intruder. Elmer Vartanian, recently released from prison for a museum robbery, is coerced into helping scout the museum for a heist by a gang that has kidnapped his daughter. When her husband is found murdered, Juliet becomes the prime suspect, and Elmer is her only alibi.

Juliet, the rebellious only daughter of a wealthy financier, and Elmer, a lower-class ex-convict who has educated himself in prison, must partner to solve their separate crises. She is Elmer’s guide to a post-war world that has changed so much since he entered prison. He feels guilty for having missed his daughter’s childhood, for being safe when friends were killed in World War II, and is bewildered over atomic energy, Modern Art, ballpoint pens, and frozen orange juice concentrate.

Juliet is not sure she believes Elmer’s story. Elmer is not sure she didn’t kill her husband, yet they are compelled to work together, dogged by the scandal-monger newsman, the shrewd police detective, and scrutinized by the even more judgmental eye of Hartford’s elite in world where Modern Art meets old-fashioned murder.

The novel is offered for a limited time only at 99 cents.

However, I will offer the book free for the next month to any blogger willing to review the book (Or just give it a mention and a link. I’m not fussy.) on his/her blog. Just email me at: JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com with your blogsite url, and I will email you back with the special coupon code to download “Cadmium Yellow, Blood Red” FREE from Smashwords.com.

Note, on the Smashwords site you can download the book in any format that can be read by Kindle, Sony, Nook, any other kind of e-readers, and can also be downloaded to be read right on your computer. You do not need an e-reader.

When purchasing an ebook from Amazon, also note that you can download the Kindle program to your computer, so you can read books on your computer.

First Church (Center Church) of Hartford, Connecticut

2011-03-08T07:31:00.000-05:00

Life is often both dignified and comical at the same time. While I would not suggest that the small church pictured here is funny, dwarfed as it is by a larger glass and steel office building, but one may smile all the same at the stubborn refusal of the outdated past to shirk away from the bold and brassy present. I would not call the modern structure “the future”, because it may not be standing in the future. The church however, I would certainly bet on.

It’s already been standing since 1807.

The First Church, or Center Church, of Hartford, Connecticut holds a long and respected place in Connecticut history. It’s first pastor was Thomas Hooker, who when trudging off into the New England Wilderness after a dispute with John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded Hartford on the Connecticut River in 1636.

In the past 375 years, four buildings have served the congregation. The first was a log building where the Old Statehouse stands today. The third structure, built in 1739, stood where the present church stands today. The present meeting house has stood here since 1807, (at the dedication, the congregation was treated to the first performance in Hartford of the “Hallelujah!” chorus from Handel’s Messiah.)

A church welcoming of other faiths, it allowed the first Roman Catholic Mass in Hartford to be celebrated in this building in 1813.

With a few additions and renovations in the last couple of hundred years, the meeting house has weathered a far greater test of time than the shadows thrown from taller, newer buildings.

The bell in the steeple was cast in England in 1633. It still rings out on Main Street.

For more on the First Church or Center Church of Hartford, have a look at this website.

Vintage Radio & Communications Museum of Connecticut

2011-03-01T07:46:00.000-05:00

The Vintage Radio & Communications Museum of Connecticut showcases our march through time in the noisy 20th Century with a fantastic collection of technology that gave us what we wanted, and made us who we were. Then, and now.

The museum is located in Windsor, Connecticut. Here you’ll find a fascinating assortment of gadgets, inventions, and appliances that brought the world home to us: telegraph, telephones, the phonograph that gave us recorded music, mounted in very stylish cabinets whose workmanship we’re not likely to see again.

Cathedral radios that brought us President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “fireside chats”, and bulletins on the war. The radio was such a novelty when it came out, it was even placed inside one line of early refrigerators.

An ever-evolving parade of televisions, those squint-inducing tiny first screens with the magnifier attachments, to the obese-looking cathode ray tubes mounted in large standing consoles that streamed the world to us in three channels.

You’ll find early computers here as well, and broadcasting equipment. There is also a fully operational amateur radio station on site, and business electronics like early fax machines, Dictaphones, and one of the first photocopiers.

We seem to trace our own lives, and the lives of at least three generations of our families, when we visit here. Have a look at the website for more information.

Iwo Jima Memorial - Manchester, New Hampshire

2011-02-22T07:52:00.000-05:00

From February 19th through 25th, 1945, a battle on Iwo Jima left an enormous number of casualties on both sides, and mass graves. It was late in the war, this would be the last winter, but the snows of New Hampshire were missing from this Pacific island, awash in human blood and gore, and close enough to Japan to make giving up unthinkable to both American and Japanese forces.

Most of us are familiar with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Joe Rosenthal photograph of the victorious American marines and a Navy corpsman raising the flag on Mt. Suribachi. That happened on the 23rd. One of those fellows was PFC Rene A. Gagnon of the 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment, 5th Marine Division. He was 18 years old at the time.

A monument sits in a quiet place in a Manchester, New Hampshire park, and the green of last summer seems too-vivid, garish in the snows of today. The memorial is dedicated to Rene Gagnon, who was born and raised in Manchester, and to all Manchester service personnel who “answered their country’s call.”

Underneath the bas-relief depiction of PFC Gagnon, is a quote by him, “Don’t glorify war…there is no glory in it.” Anyone whom fate had placed on the small island of Iwo Jima during those hellish days would know.

His moment in history seemed to be something he tried to live up to, and also from which he tried to capitalize. He appeared as himself in “The Sands of Iwo Jima” (1949), and in a documentary short called “To the Shores of Iwo Jima” (1945), and a couple of TV appearances, but his notoriety as a common man captured in one of the most famous photos on one of the important events of World War II was a doubled -edged sword. He spent the rest of his life in menial jobs, alcoholic and embittered by failing to live up to, or beyond, that moment of destiny. He died in 1979. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

But here his likeness, and that uplifting moment when victory was announced with the scramble to hoist a flag on a hilltop -- are cast in metal and stone, standing in peace and serenity denied Rene Gagnon.

For more on PFC Rene Gagnon, have a look at this website. For more on the Battle of Iwo Jima, have a look here.

Edwin Booth in Waterbury, Connecticut

2011-02-15T07:25:00.000-05:00

Edwin Booth, Library of Congress - in public domain

We’ll stay in Waterbury, Connecticut this week, but much farther in the past. The great 19th century actor, Edwin Booth, whose tribulations in Boston when his brother, John Wilkes Booth, murdered President Abraham Lincoln (discussed in this post on my Tragedy and Comedy in New England blog) -- came to Waterbury for what became a groundbreaking performance in “Hamlet”.

We have this episode in Edwin Booth’s career mentioned in Curtain Time - The Story of the American Theater by Lloyd Morris (Random House, NY, 1953), wherein his acting company was scheduled for a single performance of Hamlet. The author does not specify the year. Tickets had been sold out, and the eager audience filled the house. The cast arrived by train, but their scenery and costumes did not.

This incident is also mentioned in the memoirs of Booth’s daughter, Edwina Booth Grossman in Edwin Booth - Recollections by His Daughter, (The Century Company, NY 1894).

When told of the problem, Booth calmly took charge, decided not to cancel the performance and stood out upon the stage before the curtain. He told the audience about the mishap, and said they would play “Hamlet” anyway, on the bare stage and in street clothes.

This was not an era for much experimentation in theatre, certainly with few attempts to “modernize” the classics, but reportedly the audience not only accepted the bare-bones production, but were riveted, captivated by this most masterful Hamlet.

As an unexpected finale, the costumes, props, and set pieces arrived at the theater just in time for the last two acts of this five-act play.

According to the author, this was the first-known incident of performing a Shakespearean play in street clothes and on a bare stage.

“Annoying as this incident was, he enjoyed the novelty of the experience,” his daughter writes, “and frequently referred to it in later years.”

The Mattatuck Museum - Waterbury, Connecticut

2011-02-08T07:57:00.000-05:00

The Mattatuck Museum Arts & History Center, on The Green in Waterbury, Connecticut, showcases art and history, with a particular emphasis on Connecticut’s cultural past. The rare melding of art and history, and community, tells the story of the region, and of Waterbury, in a profound and valuable way.

The history exhibit, with changing displays, carries us from the 1600s through the industrial dynamo years of the late 1800s through the middle part of the 20th century, when Waterbury found itself a manufacturing bastion. We are taken through the years, socially, economically, and politically, right up to today, and see connections and timelines that continue to morph the community.

Along with products of the mills, experience the frightening 1955 Flood. In one display case, among notable persons from Waterbury, you’ll find the graceful, confident expression of Rosalind Russell captured in a sculpture. For more on Roz, as well as her own exploits during the 1955 Flood, have a look here at my Another Old Movie Blog.

In the art gallery are examples by John Trumbull, Frederick Church, Charles Ethan Porter, and many other 19th and 20th century artists, and contemporary artists as well.

Stepping back to Waterbury’s industrial heritage again, the museum also houses the Button Museum, a unique attraction. The variety of buttons represent tiny works of art in many materials, including examples from Asia, military buttons, Bakelite buttons from the 1930s, and four engraved buttons from the coat of General George Washington.

The collection was originally part of the Waterbury Button Company, which had made buttons here since 1812, and given to the museum by the Waterbury Companies, which succeeded the Waterbury Button Company.

This museum is Waterbury in microcosm, and other communities looking to establish museums preserving their regional culture and history would do well to visit The Mattatuck Museum.

Al's Diner - Chicopee, Massachusetts

2011-02-01T07:53:00.000-05:00

This shot of historic Al’s Diner in Chicopee, Massachusetts was taken in the summer. You can tell this by the absence of 8-foot tall snowdrifts which seem to be the main feature in most photographs taken in New England in the past month. Also, you can tell it’s summer by the “Sorry, we’re closed” sign on the window and a small note, on the glass part of the door at the right, which tells us they were on vacation.

Al’s Diner, built in the late 1950s, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. Built by Master Diners, it stands on Yelle Street, its “French Meat Pie to Take Home” sign on the roof a beacon to hungry travelers and neighborhood regulars. The other sign lets you know you can take a whole ham home, too.

New England State Symbols

2011-01-25T07:46:00.000-05:00

There is an astonishing collection of state symbols in New England, most of which most of us probably have never heard of, until reading trivia lists like this:

The state shellfish of Connecticut is the Eastern oyster. Massachusetts has the New England Neptune as its state shell. Vermont seems to do all right without a state shell or shellfish.

Birds are popular state symbols. Rhode Island has its Rhode Island Red chicken, Connecticut took the robin, which departs in winter so one wonders how reliable a state bird that is. Both Maine and Massachusetts of course have the Chickadee, mainly or Mainely because Maine was once part of Massachusetts -- which also explains the coincidence of the mayflower being the state flower. That and Patriot’s Day.

Vermont has red clover for its flower, and milk for its state beverage. Three cheers and a milk mustache for the dairy industry in Vermont. Maine’s state beverage is Moxie, which you need to drink the stuff.

Berries are awfully important, too. The cranberry belongs to Massachusetts, and Maine’s is the wild blueberry.

The state rock in New Hampshire is granite, of course. It’s marble in Vermont, and cumberlandite in Rhode Island. Don’t suppose there are too many countertops or statues made of the slightly magnetic cumberlandite, but maybe some of our readers can educate us about that.

Unusual in the world of state symbols is the category of state folk art symbol -- Rhode Island has the Crescent Park carousel. Not to be outdone in fringe symbols, Massachusetts has a state donut -- the Boston Crème, and a state cookie, the Toll House, or chocolate chip cookie to you.

Both Massachusetts and Vermont have chosen the Morgan horse for its state horse. And for its state ship, Connecticut adopted the nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus. Vermont has a state flavor -- maple, of course. Massachusetts has a state children’s book author, Dr. Seuss, who lost out to state children’s book -- which is Robert McCloskey’s “Make Way for Ducklings”.

Many of these symbols are references to aspects of our history or culture, though one may be hard pressed to discover why Connecticut required the praying mantis for its state insect. There’s a lot of important voting going on in the state houses. They might do some of it if there’s any time left over after voting on state cat, state fossil, and state polka.

"To Dakota and Back" - Orphan Trains Memoir

2011-01-18T08:21:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, New England children were forced into indentured servitude in a wide and vastly unpopulated West that needed laborers. They had lost one or both parents, and the bulk shipment of these children were called “orphan trains.”

Judith Kappenman, director of the Irish Cultural Center at Elms College, Chicopee, Massachusetts, has recently published, “To Dakota and Back - The Story of an Orphan Train Rider”, a memoir about her grandfather, John Donahue, who along with his brother, were two such children taken without their consent, and without their knowledge of what was really happening to them, to Dakota Territory. They were separated, sent to different farms, and spent the rest of their childhood until the age of their legal emancipation, as indentured laborers.

It is a story rich in detail that brings us from the impoverished South Boston neighborhood where the boys began their lives with their parents and younger sister. A series of events utterly beyond their control brings them to the Great Plains. John endures bitter experiences, and discovers with astonishing insight, how to thrive in his helpless situation. He is elderly when he returns to New England in a circle of life that is as triumphant as it is sad.

The organizing of “orphan trains” began in the 1850s and continued until 1930. The book is a fascinating history lesson as a personal account from this little-remembered episode of America’s past.

“To Dakota and Back” is available in paperback here from Lulu.com.

Jean Arthur at the Westport Country Playhouse

2011-01-11T07:51:00.000-05:00

The Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut has drawn, aside from appreciative audiences, luminaries from the world of stage and screen to perform, including one night in 1934.

“The Bride of Torozko”, in its English translation world premiere, featured Jean Arthur, who was still working out her metamorphosis from the dark-haired silent screen ingénue to, when she returned to Hollywood, the blonde comedienne with the unique voice that seems to defy accurate description. Sam Jaffe co-starred, and a young Van Heflin. According to the correspondent to the New York Times reporting July 9th on this out-of-town tryout headed for Broadway, among those “first-nighters” in the audience were producer Max Gordon, crime novelist Dashiell Hammett, and lyricist Ira Gershwin, among other society glitterati.

The play, written by Otto Indig, and adapted from Hungarian to English by Ruth Langner, was an old-world comedy of social commentary about relations between Jews, Catholics, and Protestants in a small Hungarian village.

The production hit Broadway a couple of months later in September, but also ended in September. It was Heflin’s Broadway debut, and Jean Arthur’s fifth crack at bat. We’ll discuss their work together in the movie “Shane” (1953) on my “Another Old Movie Blog” on Thursday.

Despite its short run, more typical that we might believe, the cast were mostly lauded. Sam Jaffe gave “a performance that may be too mannered but that it is warm, skillful and comic,” said Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times in his review on September 14th.

“As Klari, the beautiful Jean Arthur may still be a trifle too heavy for ideal comedy acting, but this is the best acting of her career, and it is modestly enchanting.”

We can see here a snapshot in time of the metamorphosis of the silent ingénue on her way to becoming the sassy actress with the perfect timing and delivery who, in a few more years, was said by directors and her colleagues to be the best at screwball comedy.

One wonders what Ira Gershwin and Dashiell Hammett thought.

You Are Here: West Cornwall, Connecticut

2011-01-04T07:31:00.000-05:00

You are here in West Cornwall, in the quiet hills of northwestern Connecticut, nine miles from Goshen if you’re going that way, and a variety of other options as conveyed on this signpost if you’re not.

Blackout - December 1942

2010-12-28T07:50:00.000-05:00

It’s beginning to look a lot like…darkness. This public service announcement in the Springfield (Massachusetts) Daily News reminds us about the blackout procedure for tonight. First the horn will sound, next the street lights will go out. Next another short blast and all traffic should stop, all lights in private homes and businesses should be extinguished. Finally, the all clear horn will sound. Hopefully.

And all freakily juxtaposed next to the announcement “20 shopping days till Christmas!”

December 1942, and we remember our priorities.

Christmas Dinner at the Sheraton, Springfield, Massachusetts

2010-12-21T07:32:00.001-05:00

December 25, 1941, with the U.S. only two weeks into its involvement in World War II, the future might have been forboding, but no rationing or shortages had struck us yet. It would be, if not the last peacetime Christmas, then the last Christmas of pre-war style celebration.

Here at the Sheraton Hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts, Christmas Dinner, a spread of several courses from fruit cup to appetizers such as chopped chicken livers, to soups, to the main course, your choice of several (roast turkey, baked whole lobster, etc.), green salad of iceberg lettuce and your choice of French, Rocquefort or Thousand Island dressing. Desserts include mince pie, green apple pie, pumpkin pie, or Indian pudding. Something also called a Santa Claus Parfait, as well as lemon or raspberry sherbet.

All yours for two bucks. In the decades since we've gone less regional with our dining choices and with much less plain fare. The changes in price, well, we won't go there. Merry Christmas.

December Sale at Steiger's, Springfield, Massachusetts

2010-12-14T07:36:00.000-05:00

On sale at Steiger's, downtown Springfield, Massachusetts in December, 1941. Got to get those "socks for skating" for 39 cents a pair.

For more on Steiger's, have a look here.

Palmer, Mass. boy at Pearl Harbor

2010-12-07T07:23:00.000-05:00

Springfield Daily News, December 8, 1941

Frank A. Hryniewicz, of Palmer, Massachusetts got his name in the paper 69 years ago. He was a member of the crew of the USS Oklahoma, and he held rank of Seaman First Class.

His ship was sunk in Pearl Harbor, and he died along with over 400 of his shipmates. Today, his name can be found on the USS Oklahoma Memorial, which was dedicated only three years ago today in 2007.

Remember Frank today, and remember Pearl Harbor.

Book Review - Meet Me in Nuthatch

2010-11-30T07:44:00.000-05:00

Kindly have a look at this review of my novel “Meet Me in Nuthatch” by Grace Krispy on her book review blog, “MotherLode”, and check her blog for an impressive collection of new book reviews.

Sarah Josepha Hale's Thanksgiving

2010-11-23T08:18:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving had been celebrated in New England for a couple of centuries before Sarah Josepha Hale fought to have it made a national holiday. She first came up with the idea in the 1820s, but it took 17 years of concentrated pestering beginning the 1840s, letters to five Presidents, as well as several governors, congressmen, and orchestrating a national letter-writing campaign, before President Lincoln signed the Executive Order in 1863 to make Thanksgiving a national American holiday, partly as an effort to find a common thread to unite the nation again.

Mrs. Hale shared Lincoln's enthusiasm for uniting the nation under common symbols. She also worked for the restoration of George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, as a similar symbol to unite North and South with a powerful reminder of our shared roots and shared national interests.

Sarah Josepha Hale was born in the Guild section of Newport, New Hampshire, as this historic market in Newport tells us. Her personal achievements are numerous, from teacher, to novelist, to editor of the prestigious 19th Century magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book, that there are many facets to her life we can discuss in future posts. For now, let us give thanks that she gave us a national Thanksgiving Day.

Below, an 1959 editorial, one of many she wrote, that expresses her still as yet unrealized dream of the Thanksgiving holiday.

OUR NATIONAL THANKSGIVING

"All the blessings of the fields,

All the stores the garden yields,

All the plenty summer pours,

Autumn's rich, o'erflowing stores,

Peace, prosperity and health,

Private bliss and public wealth,

Knowledge with its gladdening streams,

Pure religion's holier beams --

Lord, for these our souls shall raise

Grateful vows and solemn praise."

We are most happy to agree with the large majority of the governors of the different States -- as shown in their unanimity of action for several past years, and which, we hope, will this year be adopted by all -- that the LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER shall be the DAY Of NATIONAL THANKSGIVING for the American people. Let this day, from this time forth, as long as our Banner of Stars floats on the breeze, be the grand THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY of our nation, when the noise and tumult of wordliness may be exchanged for the laugh of happy children, the glad greetings of family reunion, and the humble gratitude of the Christian heart. This truly American Festival falls, this year on the twenty fifth day of this month.

Let us consecrate the day to benevolence of action, by sending good gifts to the poor, and doing those deeds of charity that will, for one day, make every American home the place of plenty and of rejoicing. These seasons of refreshing are of inestimable advantage to the popular heart; and if rightly managed, will greatly aid and strengthen public harmony of feeling. Let the people of all the States and Territories sit down together to the "feast of fat things," and drink, in the sweet draught of joy and gratitude to the Divine giver of all our blessings, the pledge of renewed love to the Union, and to each other; and of peace and good-will to all men. Then the last Thursday in November will soon become the day of AMERICAN THANKSGIVING throughout the world.

Bull's Bridge - Kent, Connecticut

2010-11-16T07:47:00.000-05:00

Bull’s Bridge in Kent, Connecticut attracts a few photographers on an autumn day, and hikers to the nearby Appalachian Trail.

The Bull family built an ironworks hereabouts sometime around 1740, but the exact date of the first covered bridge here is unknown. Possibly the current bridge design, restored and updated for automobile traffic, dates from the mid 19th century. It crosses the Housatonic River, which is harnessed near this location by a dam and canal system, providing power to the hydro-electric plant.

If you don’t really need to cross the Housatonic, then just come for the photo-op.

Belle Skinner, Hattonchatel, and World War I

2010-11-09T08:08:00.001-05:00

(Photo lifted from the Wikipedia website, original from Wistariahurst collection.)

Today in remembrance of Veteran’s Day and its original celebration of Armistice Day, we have a look at one woman from Holyoke, Massachusetts who took it upon herself to rebuild a devastated French village after World War I. Her name was Belle Skinner, and she was awarded, among other honors, title of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government.

An earlier version of this article was previously published in Chickuppy & Friends Magazine.

Belle Skinner was of a grand age. Her personality, a mixture of childlike bravado and formidable elegance, made her a long remembered figure in Holyoke. The daughter of one of the community’s most important industrialists (we’ll have more on the Skinner family and the Skinner silk milks in a future post), her family home, called Wistariahurst, still graces the city of Holyoke now as a museum, and much of that mansion bears the flourish of her personality. She made numerous contributions to its decoration and architecture. A woman of many talents she left her mark on the many lives she touched.

Belle was not like her father, manufacturer William Skinner. Where he followed his ambitions in a careful and dogmatic manner, Belle's efforts were more stylish, yet she had his strength and sense of purpose; she needed it for her most important achievement: the rebuilding of the French village of Hattonchâtel.

Where her mother was gracious and sympathetic, Belle was grandly beneficent, yet she inherited her mother's diplomacy. She needed it for Hattonchâtel. She came from a large family of individuals, and this was perhaps the reason she was not swallowed up by either their accomplishments or their company. Her personality, however, was molded by their company. If she was a cross between a sprite and a grand dame, she was also every inch a Skinner.

“My dear Belle

Libbie (her sister Elizabeth) did not return last night so I must do the letter writing for today, although I have very little to say…” So her mother, Mrs. Skinner, wrote to Belle in January of 1882, while Belle was a student at Vassar College.

Actually Mrs. Skinner usually had a great deal to say, and most of the surviving Skinner family correspondence includes generously long letters, affectionate and intimate, full of news of family and friends. The above passage illustrates the Skinner family's approach to letter writing. Family members were always traveling, and it was up to somebody to remember to write almost every day. The bonds between parents and children, brothers and sisters extended across many miles and many years.

In the late 1800s when Belle attended college, the art of letter writing was in its glorious last days, soon to become a lost art to the growing use of telegraph and telephone. By 1920 when she was working on the Hattonchâtel project. Belle wrote to her brother from France:

My dear William: -

I have to send you a dictated letter, it looks so cold and unsympathetic, if I don't dictate. I'll not write anything at all…

Belle was born in 1866, and was christened Ruth Isabel. She would be second to the last of seven surviving children of William Skinner. As she grew up, she became influenced by her dynamic father's philanthropy. As an adult, she knew how to give freely of herself. Perhaps she benefited most from the lifelong support and concern of her mother, whose letters to her daughter are filled with admonitions to mind her health. In 1901 when at 35 years old, Belle made a grand tour of Europe, her mother's protective manner let a grown daughter know that she was still her mother's child.

My dear Belle, as I was enjoying myself out training my vines over the fence (by the way, whose participation vines are growing splendidly and if the boys let them alone I hope to get the fence nicely covered before, you see it) Kitten (Belle’s sister Katherine) sent Paul out to remind me that this was the morning for me to write to Belle - I soon left my work to come in and interest you for a while. First I must ask after your health and expect very soon to get a letter telling me what the doctor at Aix (Aix-le-Bains, France) had said - Ah yes, here is a letter just come. So I will hear…K read it. I'm glad the doctor thinks you look better, but sorry that they think your cramp incurable but I almost expected that - for others have given us that impression the but lots of things are worse than that for you write very well with your left hand…I think we are to blame for that insisting upon your writing such long letters…

…asked about you not long ago, and I said, I blame Vassar college for her illness and I also believe it goes back to the time of that sunstroke…

Well, K is waiting to take this to the mail so I will say goodbye with lots of love from all to our dear Belle.

Affectionately Mother.

Whether the illness to which Mrs. Skinner refers in this letter was a definitely diagnosed ailment or a series of periods of indifferent health, we do not know. It is certain that her health was an almost constant worry to her mother.

At home in the company of an army of brothers and sisters, whose family was one of the most important and influential in the city of Holyoke, a child might learn to compete for attention and leadership within the group. However, her brother William presents a contradiction to the assumption of gregariousness in his comments at one of the Skinner family reunions.

Now I come to Belle, the organizer of this party, Rebuilder of Hattonchâtel, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. One would scarcely believe that Belle was a timid child, but on one occasion, having accepted an invitation from a Holyoke young man to go on a sleighing party. She became so frightened as the time approached, that she refused to leave the house unless Joe (her other brother Joseph Skinner) was going on the same party would carry in his pocket a flask of brandy to revive her in case of need.

Though he was only teasing his sister at a family gathering, his estimation of Belle’s timidity is echoed by his sister, Katherine, who in a letter to Belle comforts her that it was not just Belle, but that all the brothers and sisters felt much more at ease in the family group, than with outsiders.

The only reason why you would not talk at the luncheon was because the people were not congenial. You know, you can talk just as well as ever, only not one of us ever had much experience in society. We don't know what to say…

Not much experience in society? Children of one of the most wealthy and influential families of Holyoke, who were familiar in social circles in New York and in Europe?

The Skinner family reunion held at irregular intervals, but most often at Christmas time. Belle found rising to the occasion at the Christmas party an easy affair, even if social obligations intimidated her. She took delight in its preparation. According to the 1922 reunion accounts compiled by Martha Hubbard Skinner:

Such an elaborate series of entertainments as this necessitated, of course much preparation, and naturally on Belle herself was the first person to arrive at Wistariahurst. She brought with her from the New York house a big retinue of servants, and for a full week beforehand was hard at work carrying out her plans.

Belle so enjoyed her family that one wonders what it must have been like for her, sometimes frail and sometimes timid, to leave home for Vassar College in the autumn of 1881. She was 15 years old when she left to attend Vassar Preparatory. Her first letters home to Wistariahurst are filled with typical homesickness and the gradual adapting to an interesting new world apart from her family.

A Holyoke Transcript-Telegram article published in 1929 looked back on Belle’s college career:

Generous in the classic sense is the attribute that came to mind in thinking of Miss Belle Skinner. The tall and graceful Ruth Isabelle (sic) that came to Vassar in 1881 was instantly popular. Like most girls of tall, a distinguished beauty floor at the same time, the imaginative in vivid in personality, she was conscripted for men's parts and college plays.

Belle was elected president of her senior class and on class day in 1887. She delivered the class day address “full of pleasant prophecy of the future.” Her course of study was music, and she performed at various school recitals. She cut such stunning impression among her peers that 40 years later her classmates on the 40th reunion paraded and Alsatian costumes in honor of her Hattonchâtel achievement “following their gay and happy leader, an unforgettable picture as they passed the president's house….”

After college, Belle and assumed her position in Holyoke society in the late 19th century. She joined her mother and brother Joseph as a teacher in the Second Congregational Church Sunday school. She frequently financed trips to New York or Boston operas for local college girls, acted as patroness to many young musicians and also enjoyed traveling, and she seemed to identify most with France.

Her father, William Skinner died February 1902. While her brothers William and Joseph continued the management of the Skinner silk mills, Belle became her mother's devoted companion until Mrs. Skinner died in 1908. Belle and Catherine founded the Skinner Coffee House for mill girls (more on this charitable organization in a future post).

With both parents gone, Belle was in her early 40s. Katherine was the last to be married in 1904 and Belle, who did not marry, was left with a great family legacy and no family of her own with whom to share it.

These were not idle days, however. Belle’s extensive renovations to Wistariahurst were magnificent, her famed rose garden had 365 varieties of rosebushes ranging in color from pale pink to crimson. Her collection of antique musical instruments contained rare treasures, which she chose with her characteristic eye for authenticity and beauty. Serge Koussevitzky, conductor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra proclaimed her instruments “a collection of superlatives”. The medieval-gothic musical she added on to Wistariahurst was called a Mecca for students of music.

Belle was much more than just a patroness, and soon an opportunity presented itself that enabled her to truly share her magnificent resources. There were people in the other side of the world who needed her sympathy and bravado as much as they needed her patronage. Belle’s biggest adventure was ahead of her.

When World War I broke out, Belle Skinner was one of the first Americans in a still neutral United States to support the economic relief of Belgium and France. France, the land of her Huguenot, forebears had grown especially dear to her, and in the years to follow it would be her second home.

Belle went to France during wartime, and her desire to help was recalled her friend, Mrs. Ford, who spoke at the Skinner Coffee House after Belle's death.

It was a desperate time, and we had need of all the faith we could muster. The battlefront was creeping always nearer to Paris. The refugees in the north were pouring in. Often 50,000 in a single day shells from Big Bertha (nickname for a long-range cannon) were landing by day and bombs from air raids by night.

Belle found she was not able to accomplish much in the midst of chaos. She decided instead to plan positively and presume victory for the Allies. She would return to war-torn France after the Armistice as head of the Villages Liberés movement, a privately organized drive for the restoration of French villages.

She spoke on behalf of this organization, not so timid now, in Holyoke in October 1919 and urged the city fathers as well as private citizens to contribute. Holyoke became the first city in the United States to adopt a French town under this organization. The amount required to accomplish this was $30,000. Holyoke adopted Apremont-le-Foret, where so many Massachusetts men fought. A plaque was placed near the town’s restored water works on which was inscribed in French, “These waterworks are dedicated to the sacred memory of our boys who fought and fell here, as a gift to you, people of Apremont Wood, from us, the people of Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA, 1922.”

A few miles from Apremont was a village called Hattonchâtel. Belle toured the area and adopted the entire village herself in 1919. Hattonchâtel rested on the crest of a hill, and it was reported that the location reminded her of Mt. Tom and Holyoke. The Kaiser’s army held the village for four years until U.S. troops conquered the stronghold late in the war.

Hattonchâtel was a 10th century village, a farming community, and at Armistice were left with nothing. Belle became their sponsor, and they probably could not have had a better champion. The New York Tribune splashed the headline:

Rich American Woman Adopts an Entire French Village

Belle Skinner spent more than one million dollars rebuilding Hattonchâtel, France, the homes, village church. She created a water system, and fed and clothed its people.

According to Mrs. Ford:

It meant many trips back and forth, and the exercise of endless patience and good humor. The government department she had to deal with were almost collapsing under the strain of war…

She was utterly self-effacing, and she knew better than almost everyone else how to do things in the way the French most wanted them to be done.
As a memorial to the village and its people, Belle erected a statue most unlike the war monuments of soldiers would consume spring up on the European landscape. She chose instead a statue of a peasant woman who stands with hands folded, head bowed, and patient expression.

Mrs. Ford visited France in 1920 and inspected Belle's work on Hattonchâtel:

As we walked through the streets I think I came to realize the full stature of her greatness was not a great lady from overseas walking graciously among her people. She was a neighbor walking humbly among her humble neighbors, never intruding, never expecting anything return, but knowing their needs and watching over their lives with an intimate and sensitive and personal affection.

While working on Hattonchâtel, Belle stayed in the house of the parish priest, the curé.

A charming thing occurred that evening…there was an air of suppressed excitement and much secrecy, and then we heard the scuffling the feet of the stone-flagged corridor outside and in came all the children of the village big and little.

The children were carrying the two flags, and they promptly sang the “Marseillaise”. Then came the surprise. The Curé had been training them for weeks and weeks and they burst into “The Star-Spangled Banner” in French. They called her their fairy godmother.

In a letter to her brother, William, Belle wrote more of a formal ceremony:

Those who had automobiles went down the Hill with me to the monument at Vigneulles, which marks the junction of the French and American troops, and there we placed a wreath.

The French musicians played “The Star-Spangled Banner”. The wreath is carried by French and American soldiers, while the two American officers and I stood at attention.

I forgot to mention the decorations. They were simply lovely. Green arches with garlands and French and American flag. Simple, but beautifully arranged.

Well, this will be my last letter home, probably. My boat is due Sunday, October 2nd, and I should be glad to see you as usual at the Dock, but insist upon it please that Kitten shall not try to meet me.
Heaps of Love

Belle.

In 1919, Belle was decorated by Premier Millerand of France with the Medaille de le Reconnaissance Francaise at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris for her wartime aiding of refugees. In 1921, she was presented with the Cross of the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, the highest honor the French government can bestow, for her rescue of Hattonchâtel. She was the first American woman to receive the honor. It was given to her in their New York home by representative of the French government. Her brothers, and her sisters Elizabeth, Eleanor, and Katherine were present.

Though the initial work on the village was being completed, Belle continued to restore the damaged chateau in the village for herself to occupy. Just as she prepared to move into her new home, Belle died of pneumonia in April 1928. She was 62 years old.

The Denver Post was only one of hundreds of newspapers that carried the story:

FAIRY GODMOTHER
OF HATTONCHATEL
IS DEAD IN FRANCE

French papers like the Paris Journal and Le Figaro of course reported the news.

“We have lost not only a benefactress but a friend as well,” said the village mayor. “Her kindness and good humor won all our hearts here. She was rebuilding the old Hattonchâtel Castle and intended to come here and live among us. We were preparing a great welcome for her when we heard the news of her death. It is a hard blow.”

Next to the memorial of the Peasant Woman, the village of Hattonchâtel placed a marble tablet:

To the lamented Miss Belle Skinner, their sweet godmother, their munificent benefactress the inhabitants of Hattonchâtel vow unending gratitude.

In 1933 her brother William donated the Château she never lived in to the Bishop of Verdun to be used as a house of retreat for the clergy of the diocese. He also donated a recital hall building to Vassar College, Belle’s alma mater. The Belle Skinner Hall of music was dedicated in 1931.

Belle Skinner left a great and varied legacy to thousands who had benefited from her charity, which included the inhabitants of an entire French village, to her friends, former classmates and to her family.

Her family mourned her most. How often for years, had she been called home by them to renew her membership in that unique group.

“Here for a few days,” Belle said of Wistariahurst at one reunion, “we put aside our individual occupations and endeavors, and so to speak, pool our interests. Within these walls together, do we feel the grip of our inheritance.”

Family friend Mrs. Hammond recalled an image of Belle for a Skinner Coffee House tribute to her memory in November 1928. She describes how Belle tended her mother's wisteria that covered their home.

I have watched her, hour after hour directing and the men how to train each separate twig or branch. How each was to be tied back, or bent forward, or trained to grow in a certain direction, always knowing just how she wished every part of that vine look - that vine to which she jokingly used to refer as ‘my monument posterity’.

Her ‘monument’ still grows around the mansion on Pine Street. It is elegant and lovely.

For more on Belle Skinner, the Skinner family, and the Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke, Massachusetts, have a look at this website.

"The Spring Ghazals" by Jack Hayes

2010-11-02T07:28:00.000-04:00

There are splinters of imagery, of memory, that weave a complicated pattern from very simple triggers of thought in the latest book of poetry published by Jack Hayes, called “The Spring Ghazals.” We skip from

a transistor radio crackling a Red Sox game thru a
Rockingham VT hemlock green spring evening a screened-in porch in
1966 listening to balls & strikes with a man whose breathing was
labored – he did sit quiet in hemlock green air rising from the green
Connecticut River the house built into it had hemlock green
trim…

To images of San Francisco and of Idaho, where this Vermont-born poet now lives.

A ghazal is a particular kind of poem structure that has its roots in 6th century Arabic verse, and traveled about the globe through Persia and Asia, and in 19th century Europe, where Goethe introduced this poetic form that became very popular in Germany. A ghazal is defined not just by its formal structure, but by the subject. It deals with the pain of lost love or love unrequited, or separation.

Mr. Hayes, whose previous volume of poetry, “Days of Wine &, Roses” we discussed in this post from March, also performs as a blues musician, and writes the blog (as John Hayes) “Robert Frost’s Banjo.” “The Spring Ghazals” is a deeply personal journey through decades, and geography, through memories so sharp and clear we seem to share them.

Poem titles such as “what can we talk about that will take all night?” and “Pasta Alleluia” evoke intimacy in the mode ordinary of settings where the mind, and heart, wanders to other days and back again.

to the splinters of imagery in language that is simple, but precise:

A cigarette butt in a puddle outside the hospital

Or

A portion of silence

Or,

The blue scar of morning’s twilight a tightrope you’re walking between the day & night

Skipping back to Vermont, by way of Charlottesville, Virginia, by way of an Idaho kitchen. We skirt by

A Quonset hut hulking in January drizzle

And

A chowder shack in Bodega Bay.

It’s a long way to go, but we always end up back at the beginning, if only to marvel how far we’ve come.
In his post on his other blog dedicated to “The Spring Ghazals”, John relates the bittersweet real-life story behind this collection of poems. Have a look here. You can also hear him read aloud a few selections, which I recommend as he has an excellent voice and timbre for reading poetry.

“The Spring Ghazals” is available on this website.

Springfield WitchTrials

2010-10-26T17:29:00.000-04:00

Some forty years before the infamous Salem Witch Trials, a husband and wife were put on trial for witchcraft in Springfield, Massachusetts. They were innocent of witchcraft, but one of them was guilty of murder.

It happened in 1651. Hugh Parsons was a bricklayer on lower Main Street, who by his neighbors’ accounts, could be a bit moody at times. A neighbor woman, named Blanche Bedortha, criticized Mr. Parsons in some manner, and he retorted with the threat, “I shall remember you when you little think of it!”

The ruffled Goodwife Bedortha blamed Hugh Parsons for the sudden zing of static electricity she felt on her nightgown, since no one knew what that was or had a scientific explanation for it. She claimed he hexed her.

Then his second child, Joshua, died, and Mrs. Parsons’ went insane. The neighbors accused Mr. Parsons of having murdered the child. Mrs. Parsons did not help much when she, by now hysterical, confessed that she and her husband both were witches. Hugh was her third husband. I don’t know what she thought of her earlier two husbands.

Hugh got it from all sides now, as neighbors blamed everything from a cow’s having no milk, to cuts, nightmares, and minor illnesses on him being a witch.

Hugh was arrested and marched by the constable through the streets, and taken to Boston where the trial was held. The court found him guilty of witchcraft.

Fortunately for Hugh, about this time, Mrs. Parsons pulled herself together and confessed that she killed her son. They sent her to Boston for trial. Hugh was set free in May 1652. Mary was convicted of murder. All charges of witchcraft were dropped, possibly because things had just gotten too complicated and everybody was probably sick of the Parsons by now.

On the morning she was to be hanged, Mary was found to be too ill to be taken from prison. She died in her cell the next day.

Hugh never returned to Springfield, and may have left Massachusetts. He probably couldn’t wait to leave.

Meet Me in Nuthatch - A Novel

2010-10-19T07:35:00.000-04:00

This is to announce my book.

"Meet Me in Nuthatch", a novel of humor, warmth, Christmas tree farming, dressing up like it was 1904, and selling your small town to a theme park conglomerate is now issued as an ebook on Amazon Kindle, and on Smashwords, available in a variety of formats.

Here’s the blurb:

A publicity stunt to attract tourists to a small dying town (population 63), results in the entire community turning the clock back to 1904. It is local Christmas tree farmer Everett Campbell’s idea, after watching the film “Meet Me in St. Louis,” his young daughter’s new favorite movie. What begins as half practical joke and half desperate ploy initiates the rebirth of Nuthatch, Massachusetts. Tourists do come, along with the media. Everett’s resentful teenaged son rebels at living in the pretend past. His wife, a medical transcriptionist who works at home, a self-employed and self-professed loner, has panic attacks when tourists stop to take her picture. The town’s unofficial historian, a genteel septuagenarian, supports Everett’s scheme, but for personal gain.

To Everett’s dismay, his campaign to save their community results in also attracting representatives of a chain of theme parks who want to buy Nuthatch 1904. Everett now stands to lose his town in a way he never imagined, and the community is divided on which alternate future to choose. On the sidelines but ever encroaching toward the center is a local drug dealer, the longtime enemy of Everett and his best friend Bud, who discovers a new opportunity to threaten them and exploit the town, or its new owner.

The novel is mainly humorous, a bit poignant, a little sad, briefly scary, incidentally educational, and so gosh darn entertaining if you like that sort of thing.

You do not need a Kindle or other e-reader device, as both Kindle and Smashwords versions can be downloaded to your computer. It sells for $2.99.

MEET ME IN NUTHATCH is available here on Amazon, and also available on Smashwords.

Miss James and the James Pharmacy - Old Saybrook, Connecticut

2010-10-12T07:02:00.001-04:00

This sign is on the front of the James Pharmacy and Soda Fountain building in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Built in 1790, it originally served as a general store attached to the Humphrey Pratt Tavern. The Marquis de Lafayette, French hero of the American Revolution, evidentially found it a convenient place to shop.

This building, and the lives which crossed its path, represent a rich tapestry of local history in this small village that sometimes reflected, and sometimes influenced, a wider world.

In the late 1870s, the building was moved a little farther down Main Street and became a pharmacy. Peter Lane owned the pharmacy later, and it was he who added the soda fountain in the 1890s, where a person could grab a sandwich and coffee in those days before chain fast foot restaurants snagged our attention on and off the interstates.

His sister-in-law, Anna Louise James, worked for him, and took the business over from him when he went off to World War I. Miss James, as she became formally known by all and sundry in the village, was destined to make history in her own quiet way.

Historical significance and riding the crest of changing times was nothing new to her family. Her father had been born a slave in Virginia. When he was 16 years old, he escaped. He made his way, like so many seekers of freedom from southern slavery, to New England. He stopped his journey in Connecticut, and made his home here. His daughter Anna was born in Hartford, but while still a small child, the family moved to the Connecticut shore village of Old Saybrook.

Miss James, in 1908, was the first female African-American to graduate from the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy. She took over the management of her brother-in-law’s business, changing the name to the James Pharmacy, and was the first female African-American pharmacist in the state of Connecticut.

Highly independent, and highly respected, Miss James served that community until 1967 when she retired. She lived in the back of the store until her death in 1977. One story told about Miss James in a documentary currently running down the street at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, notes that teenaged Kate, who frequented the shop (her family maintained a summer home not too far away), plunked herself at the counter and bemoaned that her parents would not allow her to run off to an acting audition in New York City. Miss James, from her exalted position behind the Vermont marble counter, considered the youngster’s plight, and plunked down bus fare for Kate. Miss James, in her capacity as the only grown up present, gave her permission to try to be an actress.

Another young person who was undoubtedly influenced by Miss James, was her own niece, Ann. Ann Lane Petry also became a registered pharmacist and worked at the James Pharmacy, but discovered that her path led away from prescriptions to career as a writer. She wrote several books, including “The Drug Store Cat” based on her childhood memories of her father’s, and later her Aunt Anna’s pharmacy. She is perhaps best known for her passionate and thoughtful novel “The Street”, which tells of an African-American woman’s struggle for survival, and for integrity in World War II-era New York City.

Though by most accounts, the Lane-James families settled quite successfully in the predominantly white population of Old Saybrook, Ms. Petry wrote an interesting passage in “The Street” describing her character Lutie, a New York woman, taking a job as a domestic for a well to do Connecticut family and encountering her first exposure as the only black person in the community. She discovers that the wealthy white women look at her with suspicion because she is young and beautiful, and they assume she will try to flirt and seduce their husbands, because they think that is what black girls do.

“It was, she discovered slowly, a very strange world that she had entered. With an entirely different set of values. It made her feel that she was looking through a hole in a wall at some enchanted garden. She could see, she could hear, she spoke the language of the people in the garden, but she couldn’t get past the wall. The figures on the other side of it loomed up life-size and they could see her, but there was this wall in between which prevented them from mingling on an equal footing. The people on the other side of the wall knew less about her than she knew about them.”

As much a pioneer as her pharmacist aunt, Ann Lane Petry was the first black female author to write about the struggles of African-American women in the city. “The Street” was published in 1946.

She had grown up in Old Saybrook, and when she married writer George Petry, she moved with him to Harlem, publishing many short stories, articles on the Harlem experience, and winning accolades as a unique voice among her generation. But celebrity, with all its trappings, was not for her. She took the money she’d earned from “The Street”, which was a best seller, and headed back home to Old Saybrook, where they did the typical New Englander thing and bought a 200-year-old house. After her daughter, Elisabeth was born, Ann Lane Petry turned her focus to historical novels for children.

She died in 1997, still living only a little ways away from her Aunt Anna’s pharmacy. It was, after all, home.

Today the James Pharmacy still stands, though it has been closed for certain periods and has undergone ownership change a number of times in the past few decades. There is currently still a soda fountain there, where you can, as I did this summer, enjoy an ice cream. The Vermont marble counter is still there, too.

The current owners run an adjoining shop featuring Moroccan imported goods. Have a look here for their website, Tissa’s Moroccan Marketplace. See this website on the history of the James Pharmacy, and look here for more memories about the inimitable Miss James.

Covered Railroad Bridges - Newport, New Hampshire

2010-10-05T08:16:00.000-04:00

At first we see what appears to be a covered bridge partly blocked from view by the overgrowth of scrub and trees on the bank of the river it crosses. This end of the bridge meets a dirt road, a recreational trail.

On second glance, there is more to understand. This is a railroad bridge, one of only two covered railroad bridges in the state of New Hampshire. The other is a short way down the road. There are only about eight of them left in all of North America.

These two railway bridges are called the Pier Bridge and Wright’s Bridge across the Sugar River in Newport. I think this one is the Pier Bridge, but I hope someone out there can either confirm that or set me right. We can see it is under renovation. We may assume the portable toilet will not be a permanent part of its restoration design.

The Piers Bridge was built in 1907 by the Boston and Maine Railroad to replace an earlier bridge from the 1870s. It is the longest covered railway bridge in the world. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the citizens of Newport have been working diligently to raise funds to preserve their covered bridges as historic treasures and as examples of their own personal heritage.

That is the emotional pull towards historic treasures we must have to truly value them: a sense of personal pride of heritage when we have them, and a sense of personal loss when we lose them.

Have a look at these two websites for more on the Pier and the Wright’s covered railway bridges.

Quaker Meeting House - Yarmouth, Massachusetts

2010-09-28T08:01:00.000-04:00

The Friends Meeting House in Yarmouth, Massachusetts was in use by the local Quaker community for a century from 1809 to 1909, but then awakened from dormancy in 1955 by an active Quaker community.

After World War II, newcomers started to call Cape Cod home, and among these a growing number of worshipers of the Society of Friends, who also joined Quaker communities established in nearby towns of Sandwich and Falmouth.

This Yarmouth Meeting House, which along with an adjoining one-room Quaker schoolhouse are on the National Historic Register, continue to serve the community with “silent” worship services (this meeting house has never in its history had a minister), and First Day School for children and adults.

For more on the history of Quakers on Cape Cod, have a look at this interesting website.

Have a look at this previous post for more on the Quaker Meeting House in North Adams, Massachusetts on the other end of the state.

And so I find well to come
For deeper rest to this still room
For there the habit of the soul
Feels less the outer world's control
The strength of mutual purpose pleads
More earnestly our common needs;
And from the silence multiplied
By these still forms on either side,
The world that time and sense have known
Falls off and leaves us God Alone.

Charles Dickens on a Connecticut River Steamboat

2010-09-21T07:41:00.000-04:00

Above we have a shot of the “Becky Thatcher”, a replica “steamboat” on the Connecticut River operated by the Essex Steam Train & Riverboat out of Essex, Connecticut. More on that in a future post. For now, let’s travel by a real 19th century steamboat with Charles Dickens.

The noted English author toured America in 1842. We noted his observations on the Lowell factory system in this previous post about the mill girls of Lowell and Chicopee.

A later stop on that trip brought him to Springfield, Massachusetts where he boarded a steamboat for Hartford. It was February, and the winter had been so mild that year, that the first steamboat trip of the year was scheduled early.

That is not to say the river was completely without ice.

The river was full of floating blocks of ice, which were constantly crunching and cracking under us; and the depth of the water, in the course we took to avoid the larger masses, carried down the middle of the river by the current…The Connecticut River is a fine stream; and the banks in summer-time are, I have no doubt, beautiful; at all events I was told so by a young lady in the cabin.

The cabin, he notes, was very small, and the passengers all stood in the middle of it for fear of tipping the boat over to one side or other.

After two hours and a half of this odd traveling (including a stoppage at a small town, where we were saluted by a gun considerably larger than our own chimney), we reached Hartford.

It rained heavily, but “being well wrapped up, bade defiance to the weather, and enjoyed the journey.”

His party stayed in Hartford four days, and later went to New Haven by railroad.

Mr. Dickens makes no mention of their maneuvering through Windsor Locks, Connecticut, so-called because the canal locks on the river built there in 1829 make navigation accessible.

The reason they took the steamboat, so Dickens was informed, was because though Hartford is only some 25 miles south of Springfield, the roads (in February 1842) were so difficult to travel that the trip would have taken 10 or 12 hours by stage.

And that was in the fast lane on Route 91.

Lynde Point Lighthouse - Old Saybrook, Connecticut

2010-09-14T07:41:00.000-04:00

Here is the Lynde Point Lighthouse of Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Standing at the mouth of the Connecticut River and Long Island Sound, this sentinel on the Connecticut shore was built in 1838, to replace an earlier wooden tower built in 1803.

The structure is octagonal shaped, and made of brownstone currently painted white. It’s fifth-order Fresnel lens was installed in 1890. Automated in 1978, the light is still under the operation of the Coast Guard, and is not open to the public.

For more on the Lynde Point Lighthouse, have a look at this website, and also this one.

Airport Diner - Manchester, New Hampshire

2010-09-07T07:42:00.000-04:00

Here is the Airport Diner, part of the Common Man chain, located next to the Holiday Inn on Brown Avenue in Manchester. The Manchester Airport is down the road, so here explains the airplane theme. Opened in 2005, this retro diner also has a 1950s theme.

Listen to Lesley Gore singing “It’s My Party” on the jukebox, and look up to the many large models of airplanes (including, to my delight and surprise, a replica of the 1930s-era GeeBee “City of Springfield” - more on the story of this plane and the Granville Brothers of Springfield, Mass. another time).

Then look down to your plate of comfort food. Go ahead. Dig in.

Third Blog Anniversary

2010-09-03T07:16:00.000-04:00

View from Mt. Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts.

Tomorrow marks the 3rd anniversary of New England Travels. Thank you for the pleasure of your company on the journey.

For at least the near future, this blog will post only once per week on Tuesdays. See you next week.

Millie the Mill Girl - Manchester, New Hampshire

2010-08-31T07:18:00.001-04:00

Here is “Millie”, the Mill Girl. She stands in a place well known to her, for she has crossed these brick portals many, many times. This is the world of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, what was and what is. We are in Manchester, New Hampshire.

We mark Labor Day next Monday with a look at this evocative statue sculpted by Antoinette Schultze and dedicated September 9, 1988.

The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company created Manchester, as much as did Samuel Blodgett, who in 1807 constructed a canals and locks along the Merrimack River that would open this area by Amoskeag Falls to industrial development. His idea was of a kind of textile manufacturing center similar to the city of Manchester in Great Britain. In referring to this project as “The Manchester of America”, the nickname stuck, and Manchester, along with the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, which produced cotton and woolen textiles, became a planned industrial city in much the same way as Lowell, Massachusetts.

The first jeans put out by Mr. Levi Strauss were made from cloth manufacturered here.

With its orderly grid of streets and any amenity of civilized village life the old paternalistic system could bestow, it was a world unto itself. The world came crashing down on Christmas Eve, 1935, when the Amoskeag closed it doors. There were many contributing factors, the Great Depression obviously being among them, but aging technology in a fast-changing world had a lot to do with it. River-powered turbines were not needed in the newer plants of the South when the oil which powered those mills seemed so plentiful.

There is a very old cycle to creating industry and watching it become obsolete, a pattern we have yet to fully understand, let alone break.

Visit the Amoskeag complex of 19th century factory buildings today, and you find a number of small businesses including software companies, stores, and the very interesting Millyard Museum, which holds the story of Amoskeag, among them.

Millie the Mill Girl stands here stoically reflecting on the past. The plaque mounted on the side of the building above her contains a moving tribute to our mill girl:

She stands here, for thousands
Of 19th century working women:

Industrial revolutionaries who broke
With the past to earn their living
Making history and creating the future.

For more on the 19th century mill girls, have a look at this previous post on Millie’s sisters in Lowell and in Chicopee.

For more on the Millyard Museum, have a look at this website.

Summertime in Newbury, New Hampshire

2010-08-24T07:57:00.000-04:00

Town meeting’s come and gone in Newbury, New Hampshire, yet on a warm, lazy summer day like this, there is something eternal about the banner across the country road.

Or the checkerboard put out on the sidewalk in front of some shops.

Or the flowers on the bridge over the southernmost cove of Lake Sunapee, where motorboats pull up to the dockside restauraunt, called The Anchorage.

But, change does come here, too. Newbury, incorporated in 1837, had taken a fling at being “Dantzic”, “Hereford” and “Fisherfield” before the final moniker. Change comes, but maybe it’s just a little slower. Or, maybe it just seems that way in summer.

The Flood of 1955

2010-08-20T07:41:00.001-04:00

(Don't forget to scroll down to the bottom of this page to mute the music so you can hear the newsreel.)

The Flood of 1955 came from the residual rain of two hurricanes, and yet because of its suddenness in striking in the wee hours on August 19th, seemed to come out of nowhere.

Hurricane Connie, and Hurricane Diane, neither of which actually entered New England, nevertheless pushed a couple of feet of rain, a deluge in a very short span of just over a day. The sodden ground could take no more, and the rivers morphed into monsters and took property, and lives, away.

There seemed to be less havoc on the Connecticut River, which had the benefit of flood control projects inspired by previous flood disasters, but the smaller rivers and tributaries were not protected quite so well.

The Westfield River in Western Massachusetts, and especially down the Naugatuck River valley, Connecticut’s industrial center, was hammered by the swift, destructive current. In Connecticut, over 90 people were dead or missing and presumed dead. In a report in the Connecticut State Library, “The Connecticut Floods of 1955: A Fifty-Year Perspective” we note that over 85,000 people were left without jobs, several thousand suffered flood damage to their homes, or were temporarily left homeless, or lost their homes altogether.

Another flood in October would make 1955 a very memorable and tragic year for Connecticut. In these days before suburban industrial parks, most industries were built on, and were powered by, rivers. Our towns created by the rivers in the 16th and 17th centuries still thrived as 20th century “downtowns” where most of the commerce, if not still many of the homes before suburban sprawl, were situated.

There is a duality to rivers. They give birth to communities, and whole civilizations; and they sometimes take it away.

Have a look here for facts and figures, and photos, of the Connecticut flooding in this Connecticut State Library site, a 50-year perspective on the 1955 floods. Have a look here for a series of articles by Jim Shea of The Hartford Courant also done on the 50th anniversary in 2005, particularly for the vivid memories shared by readers.

Also have a look here for a Western Massachusetts perspective from one of my favorite blogs, On Larch Lane.

And here on yesterday’s Another Old Movie Blog, we discuss Rosalind Russell’s movie premiere and homecoming to her hometown of Waterbury, Connecticut hours before the flood destroyed much of the aptly named Waterbury.

Vaughn Monroe at The Meadows

2010-08-17T06:53:00.000-04:00

Maybe you recall The Meadows in Framingham, Massachusetts and danced to Vaughn Monroe’s big band.

Here is the cover of sheet music for a jingle written for The Meadows by Jack Edwards and Johnny Watson. We see a photo of this nightclub on the front, and on the back, a photo of Vaughn Monroe, who owned The Meadows and broadcast his national radio show Camel Caravan here for a while in the late 1940s.

Mr. Monroe, for the uninitiated, was a singer and musician, and big band leader. He formed his own band in 1940, appeared in Boston and on The Terrace Gables in Falmouth on the Cape, and in several other cities around the country. After he took up ownership of The Meadows on Route 9, his band still toured quite a bit.

Those of us who are fans will remember his hits like “Ghost Riders in the Sky”, “Ballerina”, “There, I’ve Said it Again,” “Sound Off”, his signature tune, “Racing with the Moon.”

Other spots in New England where Vaughn Monroe played were Seiler’s Ten Acres in Wayland, and the Surf Ballroom in Revere, Massachusetts. He performed at the Carousel Ballroom in Manchester, New Hampshire; at the Canobie Lake Ballroom in Salem, NH, as well as the Hampton Beach Casino.

Maybe you weren’t lucky enough to see him, but listened to his Camel Caravan on WBZ from Boston. Later the show moved to television.

The Meadows burned down in 1980.

For more on The Meadows and the career of Vaughn Monroe, have a look at this website, and here for some memories. Special thanks to Gail Watson for hunting up this bit of Route 9 memorabilia.

Wells-Ogunquit Historical Society

2010-08-13T07:35:00.000-04:00

Route 1 through southern Maine seems more built-up each year with new businesses, and summertime traffic. Here in Wells, the Historical Society of Wells & Ogunquit observes the changes through the windows of the Meetinghouse Museum.

It’s the old First Congregational Church, on the National Register of Historic Places, over 140 years old, but continuing service in a new way for a town that is now 357 years old. New development on Route 1, whatever it brings, is just a blink of the eye in the timeline of this seaside community.

The museum here contains various exhibits on daily life throughout history, and illustrates the changes and opportunities that the people of the Wells-Ogunquit area witnessed or created by hand for themselves.

For more on the Meetinghouse Museum and the Historical Society of Wells & Ogunquit, Inc., have a look at this website.

Graves Lighthouse - Boston Harbor

2010-08-10T07:42:00.000-04:00

Photo by Detroit Publishing Company, 1906. Library of Congress collection, now in public domain.

The Graves Lighthouse stands on a rocky ledge in Boston Harbor, an outpost perhaps more rugged than romantic, but romantic enough to be used as the Cape Cod lighthouse in the 1949 film, “Portrait of Jennie” with Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones.

We tend nowadays to think of lighthouses as cozy and quaint icons of a romantic past. Perhaps something to do with the fact that automation, and a decreased reliance on ship travel, makes them seem remote and anachronistic. The story of Jennie and the starving artist, first made popular in Robert Nathan novella, is based upon anachronism and the impossible reaching out for the past, a doomed attempt to meld it with the present.

The actual history of the Graves Lighthouse is more prosaic. Built from 1903 to 1905, it is one of the younger lighthouses in New England. It replaced buoys to mark a busy shipping channel in Boston Harbor. With granite cut from Rockport, Massachusetts, it began operation in September 1905 with what was then the most powerful light of any Massachusetts lighthouse. Its enormous lens rested on 400 pounds of mercury (a spill of this material in the 1970s required the lighthouse to be shut down temporarily for decontamination). The light was automated in 1976 and its gigantic lens was sent to the Smithsonian Institute.

Photo by Detroit Publishing Company, 1906. Library of Congress collection, now in public domain.

For more on the Graves Lighthouse, have a look at this website, which also features a brief candid home movie of Joseph Cotten at the time of filming “Portrait of Jennie”. Note that it is the distance shots of the lighthouse in the film that are of the actual Graves Lighthouse. The close-ups were shot on a set back in Hollywood.

Here is another site with more information on the lighthouse.

For more on “Portrait of Jennie”, have a look here at my post on Another Old Movie Blog.

"A Funny Thing Happened..." - A Memoir by Lester Colodny

2010-08-06T07:36:00.002-04:00

What is more fun than a barrel of monkeys? The question is asked, and hilariously answered, in a new memoir by Lester Colodny of Westport, Connecticut. “A Funny Thing Happened - Life Behind the Scenes: Hollywood Hilarity and Manhattan Mayhem” was recently published by SciArt Media, written by Mr. Colodny with Susan Heller.

Mr. Colodny kindly granted me a phone interview and discussed his long and varied career as a writer of plays, ad copy, of news précis, and screenplays. He stumbled into acting and stumbled into Mae West, touring with her show “Diamond L’il”. He worked as a literary agent, a talent agent, and director of television commercials. He won an Emmy Award for a special with Jack Benny he wrote, directed and produced. He won several “Clio” awards for his unique “Xerox” commercials. Now, at 85 years old, he directs community theatre plays in Connecticut, and has written this fun memoir of a life of many career twists and turns, usually unexpected and often under the silliest of circumstances.

“When I look back, I say, “Who is that fellow, Les Colodny, that did all that?”

The monkeys, incidentally, involved the completely unprepared cast of NBC’s “The Today” show, with a clownish Dave Garroway, and his terrorized compatriots: Frank Blair, Jack Lescoulie, and a very young, beautiful, and horror-stricken Florence Henderson. Mr. Colodny was the show’s writer and associate producer at the time. You need to read the book just for this story alone.

He is a multi-talented raconteur and teller of stories, which feature Frank Sinatra, Mel Brooks, Jerry Lewis, and many more. Mr. Colodny’s granddaughter, actress, Elizabeth Hendrickson (“The Young and the Restless” and “All My Children” - 2002-2007) wrote the foreword.

“My life is funny,” Mr. Colodny remarks, noting that the parade of comical incidents, improbable twists of fate, and the sometimes exasperating over-the-top characters that have passed through his life is like, “God played a joke on me.”

For more on Lester Colodny’s work in theatre, including his new avocation as a director of community theatre plays in Connecticut, have a look at next week’s Tragedy and Comedy in New England blog. For more on his adventures in film and television, join us in a couple weeks at Another Old Movie Blog.

For more on Lester Colodny’s book and to order your copy, have a look here at the SciArt Media website. SciArt Media is a new publishing company in New Hampshire, which specializes in books by New England authors.

The Wreck of the SS Andrea Doria

2010-08-03T07:54:00.000-04:00

(Don't forget to scroll to the bottom of this page and pause the music so you can hear the video.)

In late July 1956, the ocean liner SS Andrea Doria sank on the last night of its transatlantic voyage from Italy to New York City when another ocean liner, the MS Stockholm, collided with her.

It seemed a watershed moment, almost as if morosely heralding the end of the leisurely elegance of ship travel (the first jet was to cross the Atlantic two years later), and the beginning of instant news as still photographers from Life magazine and others, newsreel cameramen, and reporters scrambled to the site to watch the vessel sink. Topping any newspaper “extras”, the film was developed and shown on television.

Most amazing about the story of the sinking of the Andrea Doria is rescue operation that began in such an impromptu fashion, among a variety of vessels and participants, and became one of the most successful rescues at sea in history. The death toll of 46 from the Andrea Doria and 5 from the Stockholm was a tragedy. That there were not more was a triumph.

Much of the information from this post comes from Richard Goldstein’s fine book “Desperate Hours - The Epic Rescue of the Andrea Doria” (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., NY, 2003), as well as the interesting television documentary, “Secrets of the Dead - The Sinking of the Andrea Doria” (PBS 2006).

Her last voyage was to be a nine-day journey from Genoa, Italy to New York City in this era where travel was leisurely. The trip enjoyed clear weather, and a peaceful crossing until its final night when disaster struck off the New England coast.

An excellent book called “Shipwrecks Around Cape Cod” by William P. Quinn (Lower Cape Publishing, Orleans, Mass. 1973), notes centuries of nautical disasters off the shores of Cape Cod where a variety of circumstances have made these treacherous waters. Survival rates, in days long gone by, were not very good.

Safety, and chances of survival, had improved a very great deal by the summer of 1956 when the Andrea Doria was completing her pleasant journey across the Atlantic. But a hurdle had been thrown out by the typically unforgiving New England weather on this last evening of the voyage, the notoriously fog-bound waters south of Nantucket.

There was the usual last night festivities on ship, with champagne and streamers, and a roast beef dinner, and “Arrivederci Roma” played by Dino Massa and Orchestra. Shortly after 11 p.m., the MS Stockholm accidentally rammed the Andrea Doria, and a drama of several hours began.

Ten minutes after the collision, a ship-to-shore radio station in Chatham, Massachusetts on the Cape received a distress call, first from the Stockholm, and immediately followed by the Andrea Doria. Closest to the scene were six other ships: a commercial freighter called Cape Ann, a military transport Private William H. Thomas, the Coast Guard cutter Hornbeam, a Navy destroyer escort ship Edward H. Allen, and a tanker, the Robert E. Hopkins, as well as another grand ocean liner, the Ile de France.

Fortunately, though the Stockholm was severely damaged in the collision, the ship was still seaworthy and also rescued passengers from the Andrea Doria. The Andrea Doria lost the use of half of its lifeboats due to technical glitch brought on by the listing of the ship. Had not so many ships raced to the rescue, an enormous tragedy similar to the Titanic could have occurred with not enough lifeboats for the passengers.

The freighter Cape Ann, owned by the United Fruit Company, was the first to arrive. The Coast Guard directed the rescue, with participation to varying degrees from military installations around New England, including the Otis Air Force Base in Falmouth and Coast Guard units at Woods Hole on the Cape; New London, Connecticut; and in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Some injured passengers were plucked by helicopter and taken to the Nantucket Cottage Hospital for first treatment before being taken to Boston.

Boston Daily Globe, July 26, 1956, p. 1

A total of 1660 passengers and crew were rescued. The Andrea Doria, after a dark night of terror, could not be saved, and sank at around 10 a.m. the following morning, in full daylight, in full view of the cameras. For more on the shipboard experiences that night and rescue of two Hollywood stars, have a look at yesterday’s Another Old Movie Blog.

For more in the story of the Andrea Doria, have a look at this website.

Out to Lunch

2010-07-27T08:12:00.000-04:00

I'll be back next week.

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse - Revisited

2010-07-23T06:26:00.000-04:00

We had previously discussed the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse in Bristol, Maine in this previous post of two years ago, but having just found this nice panoramic shot, we might as well take another look.

Close-ups of lighthouses are great, but what’s a lighthouse without a broad horizon of ocean before it?

Hartford's "Boat Building"

2010-07-20T07:03:00.000-04:00

Here’s a look at the Boat Building. It’s the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Building in Constitution Plaza, Hartford, Connecticut, built 1961 to 1963. It was the first two-sided building in the world.

Now on the National Register of Historic Places, it represents that Modernist architectural style identified with the early 1960s, designed by Max Abramovitz, who also designed the United Nations Building in New York City, as well as Lincoln Center.

It’s 13 stories tall, and its sides face north and south. A couple of months ago, this 47-year-old building became the first historic building in New England to earn certification by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for environmental achievement. Modern and progressive architecture, indeed, apparently. For more on the award, have a look at this website.

For more on the history of the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Building, have a look here.

License Plates

2010-07-16T07:41:00.001-04:00

License plate on a roadster on exhibt at the New England Air Musuem, Windsor Locks, CT.

Maybe you can remember as far back as when new car license plates were issued every year.

Maybe you go back only as far as when they were issued every other year, in the early 1960s.

You probably don’t remember when Massachusetts was the first state to issue license plates in 1903 (New York was the first state to require them in 1901, but it was up to the car owner to obtain them.)

Here is a very interesting site run by a license plate collector, with Massachusetts plates through the years, and with samples of plates from all over the country, and some history about our license plates. They weren’t always made of tin, and they didn’t always come in a standard size. A lot of them are still made by prison inmates in many states.

How many of us entertained ourselves by searching out plates from different states on long car drives? You could call it an American pastime.