Tuesday, December 31, 2013

New Year's Eve - 1944 in Holyoke, Massachusetts

 
 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot...here's where you can spend New Year's Eve 1944, at a "Gala" party featuring Maxine King and her All-Girl Band.  "All-Girl" was not necessarily a novelty, but a necessity during wartime when your male trumpet player has been drafted. 
 
With a cover charge from $1.50 to $ 3.50, and dancing until 4:00 a.m., along with six (count 'em, six!) New York stage acts, you can't beat this evening the Valley Arena Gardens in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
 
But remember that gas rationing, and raise a glass to the new year of 1945, when hopefully, the world might be at peace.  Just like they wished for last year.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

All the Who's Down in Easthampton, Massachusetts




Congratulations to the recent Easthampton, Massachusetts "Whoville" flashmob celebration.  For those of you out of the loop, it is reckoned by fans of Dr. Seuss that the town of Easthampton, or at least the view of it over the craggy top of Mt. Tom, was the inspiration for Whoville in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Maybe so.  Certainly looks like a lot of "whos" turned out this night.  Must be true.

Merry Christmas.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Gee Bee Christmas Ornament


This Christmas, Hallmark offers a new ornament for aviation buffs and fans of New England history.  Here is the new addition to the Skys the Limit series of ornaments, the Gee Bee Super 1931 Sportster Model Z.

Aircraft pioneers the Granville Brothers established their fledging aircraft factory in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1929, turning an old farmer's field into a ramshackle airport near Liberty Street and St. James Avenue.  Here they designed, built, and tested their remarkable planes, which broke speed records.

We'll have more on the Granville Brothers and their Gee Bee planes later on in the New Year, but for now, this flashy little tree ornament is a splendid souvenir of days gone by.  It measures 3 and 3/8 inches wide wingspan, 2 inches long, and 1 inch high.  It is a replica of the "City of Springfield" plane, the city's pride and namesake.

Have a look here at Hallmark's website for more information. 

For a little more background on the Gee Bee, in a different way of telling it, here's my one-act play on the Granville Brothers and their airplane factory written as part of a project to educate Springfield school children on their city's history.  It's called Soaring in the City of Springfield.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Myths of the Modern Man giveaway...

As announced last week on my Another Old Movie Blog, I'm holding a giveaway for a paperback copy of my time-travel adventure Myths of the Modern Man. Just send me an email to JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com with the message: I WANT THE BOOK, and I'll throw your name in the hat. I'll pick the winner this Thursday, December 12th, and then I'll email the winner for the address to send the book. Nobody's email or mailing address will ever be published on this blog.

Now for a little synopsis:


A late twenty-first century time traveler battles bards, druids, warrior queens, and Roman cohorts for survival during the Celtic rebellion against the Romans in Britannia, 60 AD.

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.


The interesting (or irritating, depending on your point of view) quirk about this novel is that the chapters alternate between first person narration -- when the time traveler goes back to Britannia, and third person -- when we see the future world from where his mission is being run, and possibly being betrayed. To show you what I mean, here's a couple samples from the book. This part here is in first person. The time-traveler is telling his version of the story:


We did not speak. They wanted to kill me now that we were far from the tribe and they were free to do it, but that would no longer serve their purpose and none of them could return to the Iceni if they did. For my part, I was here because I was a liability to the Queen now that I had shamed her, so she had to get rid of me, and yet she must have felt that I was the most potentially useful member of this diplomatic corps because of my ability to see in the future. I could impress and scare Cartimandua into joining the Iceni, in a way Dubh, nor Nemain, nor Cailte would be able to impress or frighten. Boudicca was that vindictive, and that brilliant.

And now we were going off the script. Boudicca, history tells us, did not achieve an alliance with Cartimandua. History does not record that she ever sought one. But, here we were, and how much of this was due to me?

When we were approached, disarmed, and brought to the queen’s tent under guard, Dubh strutted like a man who was about to get his terms.

Three guys bigger than him pushed the moron to his knees before the queen. I smiled. Nemain dropped to his knees quite voluntary and stared obediently at the ground. Cailte and I stood quietly, calmly looking around like we were going to buy the place, and then both of us slowly knelt as casually as if we had nothing better to do. A little more solemnity by either of us and it would have appeared we were jointly kneeling to receive our marriage blessing. It sickened me to discover how much alike he and I could be sometimes.

Now I had to take something into account. If for some reason I did not get myself to the correct quadrants within southern Britannia by the end of October, which I would know because of the celebration of the Samhein, then Eleanor could not bring me back. I would be stuck here. There was a geographic element to the successful machinations of gravitational time travel, even if you were sent to a time with no atlases. Getting hung up far north of where I was supposed to be would seal my fate and keep me here for the rest of my life.

Not that I really wanted to live the rest of my life in the late twenty-first century either, where survival fell into the hands not of the fittest, but of only those who could afford it. At least here, I stood as good a chance at living as anyone else here did. We all have to die sometime. It’s how you fill up your hours in the meantime that’s the big deal.


And this bit here is in 3rd person in the futuristic lab where all this larger-than-life science/sociology is being concocted:

Dr. L’Esperance ordered Eleanor, gently but firmly, to take off her clothes.

Eleanor’s growing sense of panic reduced her ability to think clearly, and her near-hysteria took the form of a sudden helpless resignation to take orders. Eleanor undressed, wondering what she would say if General English suddenly entered the lab, but almost wishing he would, anything to delay or stop this. Dr. L’Esperance looked pleased with the tunic she lifted from the satchel in which it had been secreted to the lab and as she examined it, spoke again of Milly’s efficiency, which Eleanor again grudgingly acknowledged to herself was the truth. She had never given Milly enough credit for being a good administrative assistant. Now Eleanor was being sent to hell, otherwise known as 60 A.D., because of it. This is what happened to people who were not kind to their staff.

Dr. L’Esperance slipped the long, saffron-colored tunic of some coarse linen over Eleanor’s naked body, and gave her a gentle hug to comfort her, because Eleanor was shaking. She fastened a plaited leather belt around Eleanor’s waist to draw the baggy tunic in close to her slender waist. Dr. L’Esperance then draped a woolen cloak around Eleanor’s shoulder, and fastened it with a thin silver brooch.

“They were quite vain, weren’t they?” Dr. L’Esperance said, “They loved their finery.” She placed a torque of twisted silver around Eleanor’s neck, to mark her as noblewoman and not peasant.

“Sit down,” Dr. L’Esperance said, and Eleanor, weak with anxiety, lowered herself to a lab stool. Dr. L’Esperance cupped Eleanor’s face in her hand and began to remove Eleanor’s makeup.

“My hypothesis about the staging area for captives is based on reports from this agency,” Dr. L’Esperance continued, “For you see, after your mission failed and Colonel Moore was not returned, as a way of deflecting public outcry against the agency, a follow-up mission occurred to save Colonel Moore, to attempt to retrieve him. Of course, you did not have the electromagnetic tracking technology then, so your operative’s mission was to remain for roughly half a year and manually search out Colonel Moore or information about his final status. His return was to be accomplished through a synchronized rendezvous point, in a similar arrangement to what you had with Colonel Moore.”

Eleanor glanced up into the luminous green eyes as Dr. L’Esperance delicately wiped Eleanor’s lips.

Eleanor found her voice again. “What happened?”

“Alas, the second attempt was also unsuccessful. That operative was also lost.” Dr. L’Esperance then brushed Eleanor’s hair, and the slow, soft stroking relaxed her to the point of recalling briefly her mother and her sister in the trailer park, the only other two important women in her life, and how she hated them, wishing now it were not so.

Mesmerized, she quietly replied, “The…the only other candidate qualified at this time is Colonel Yorke.”

“Yes. Brian K. Yorke was also lost.”

“I am responsible for two deaths.”


*************************

Good luck!

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Forbes & Wallace Department Store - Eighth Floor Restaurant

Image Museum website
 

Views of the old restaurant on the eighth floor of the, now long gone, Forbes & Wallace department store in Springfield, Massachusetts.  A place to rest your feet and put down your packages, especially if you shopped on every floor on your way up here.   The holiday rush is on.

Here's an earlier post on the Forbes & Wallace building.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Let 'er rip - Sledding in Holyoke, Mass., 19th Century

Image Museum website
 

I don't when we're going to get the first big snowfall, but these kids are ready for it.  This is a late 19th century photo of some back alley fun in Holyoke, Massachusetts.  The contraption they're riding seems to be some sort of a "rip".   Do you remember rips?  Or did they call these sleds something else where you're from?

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

JFK - A 50th Anniversary



Fifty years is a long time, but still only the blink of an eye in the measure of eras, only one small thread in the enormous tapestry of history.  We see this event, this assassination, as the beginning of our modern, cynical, chaotic era, and most who remember the day--indeed, that entire waking nightmare weekend--remember not just the news but where they were, what they were doing, who they were at that time, fitting themselves into the larger context of national history.

 
 
It happened on Friday.  By the time Monday morning arrived to a bleak new world, we had suffered the shock of assassination, the agony of a young widow, been stunned at another murder on live television, and had in the course of it all become newly educated on the protocol of personal, communal, and national mourning.  Our world shut down for one day at the end of it in tribute, honor, and respect--and something more; a desire simply to pause and reflect before the world--as we suspected it might--got even crazier.
 


 
 
 
 
 
 




 
 
The newspapers (shown here from three different Springfield, Massachusetts, papers) are yellowed and fragile with age, but their images and words are still overwhelming.
 


Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Save the Leavitt Theatre - Ogunquit, Maine


Over at my Another Old Movie Blog we visited the Leavitt Theatre in Ogunquit, Maine, here in this post. Recently, a drive has been started to help the Leavitt adapt to the new digital projectors that are so costly, and without which many small independent movie theaters, like the Leavitt, will go out of business.  Here's the press release that was sent to me.  I thought you might like to have a look, and help out if you can.

____________
As many as 10,000 movie screens in North America could go dark by Dec 31st, 2013! http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/how-digital-conversion-is-killing-independent-movie-theaters-20130904
LEAVITT THEATRE KICKSTARTER: http://kck.st/HhQ8MO

Hello.

By Dec. 31st Hollywood will cease distributing films to all movie theaters on celluloid reels in favor of digital prints. America's movie screens have been forced to buy digital projectors that can cost as much as $100,000. An estimated 10,000 screens – one in every five screens in North America – will go dark because they can't afford to convert.


Over 1000 independent old-school, mom-and-pop-owned movie palaces in small towns are struggling to come up with the price of conversion. They lack the cash and resources of big chain cinemas.
And to make matters worse, the film companies are helping subsidize the large multiplexes' conversions but not the single screen movie houses.

The Leavitt Theatre in Ogunquit, Maine (est. 1923) is one of these theaters. A beautiful, classic, independent, family owned movie theater that has been showing first-run films for 90 years, they must go digital by Dec 31st or go dark!

Please click on the link below to find out more about a new KICKSTARTER drive. The Leavitt Theatre has just 25 DAYS (until Nov 30) to raise $60,000. They need help!
KICKSTARTER:http://kck.st/HhQ8MO

 Please spread the word, even if you are unable to donate.

Thanks everyone!

Article:
http://retroroadmap.com/2010/07/29/the-leavitt-theatre-ogunquit-me-youll-love-it/

Also on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Leavitt-Theatre/99336197126?ref=hl



Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Dismount and Murder - new mystery book



Dismount and Murder third in the Double V Mysteries series is now available in eBook, and paperback.  Elmer and Juliet continue their tentative relationship while investigating murder at a wealthy estate in Litchfield, Connecticut, in the summer of 1950, while a horse show on the grounds covers the tracks of a number of suspects.  Elmer, an ex-convict, is now off parole, the Korean War has just started, and television antennas are starting to spring up on rooftops all over the place. 

Then there's that missing corpse. 

It's the dawn of a new, unsettling day.

Available in eBook and paperback online here:
And other online merchants.
 
You can find the two first books in the series, Cadmium Yellow, Blood Red and Speak Out Before You Die also at the above online shops -- and in all of them, except currently for Amazon, the first book -- Cadmium Yellow, Blood Red -- is FREE as an eBook for a limited time.
Visit my Another Old Movie Blog this Thursday for a chance to win a free paperback copy of Dismount and Murder.
 
 

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

New England Vampires



With Halloween approaching this week, we give thought to an episode in New England history when vampires were thought to dwell among us.
Not vampires like Dracula, but it was very common in the folklore of New England, even unto the early 1800s, that death by consumption—or tuberculosis as we now call it—was due to the souls of the dead feeding on the living.

Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection, easily spread among people in close quarters.  Entire families were wiped out by the disease, but with absolutely no knowledge of germs, the infected victims and their frightened relatives sought other answers.

In rural New England, folklore persisted that in order to stop the disease, the body of a family member who died of it would be exhumed, and ritually desecrated in various manners—the organs would be removed and burned, or the head decapitated, or the body simply turned over to face downward.

It might have given a panicked family a night’s sleep to think they’d solved the problem, but the ritual obviously did nothing to curb the consumption of remaining family members.
A fascinating article on the subject by Abigail Tucker, which begins with an eerie investigation into an unmarked graveyard and leads to incidents in Griswold, Connecticut; Woodstock, Vermont; Plymouth, Massachusetts; and Exeter, Rhode Island; was published in Smithsonian magazine in October 2012, and reads like a mystery novel, an historical documentary, and a tantalizing ghost story.  You can read it here.

 

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Gilbertville Covered Bridge - Hardwick & Ware, Massachusetts




The Gilbertville Covered Bridge, also known as the Ware-Hardwick Covered Bridge, built in 1887, crosses the Ware River between the central Massachusetts towns of Ware and Hardwick.  Gilbertville is the village in Hardwick where the bridge is located.
 


These photos are from 1992, a period between two important restorations.  The bridge is a little over 136 feet long, and about 24 feet wide, with a roadway of a little over 19 feet. 
 
 
It had been restored in 1987, but due to a number of issues, including a pernicious beetle infestation, was closed to traffic in 2002, finally rebuilt and opened again to traffic in 2010.
 
 
 

Have a look here for more on the Gilbertville Covered Bridge.
 
 
 

 

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

New Book - The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts


Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 16th, I'll be speaking before the Chicopee Historical Society in the Community Room of Ames Privilege, lower Springfield Street, Chicopee, Mass. on three men who all worked at the Ames Manufacturing Company during the Civil War, and how the links and coincidences between them illustrate the Northern Civil War experience in a small factory town.  The event is free and open to the public.

Also, my latest book on the subject, The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War will be for sale at the event.  It is also available in paperback from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and CreateSpace.  It is available as an eBook through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Apple, Kobo, Diesel, Sony and other online shops.


Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Shelburne Falls Bowling Alley - Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts



Bridge Street on Shelburne Falls is the gateway to adventure.  At least the alley to which the arrow on this handy sign is pointing.  It leads us to...

 
 
The appropriately named Shelburne Falls Bowling Alley, where folks have been bowling "half Worcesters" since 1906.  It's candlepin, of course.  Have a look here at a previous post on candlepin bowling, and here at the Shelburne Falls Bowling Alley website for more info on the world of fun waiting for you at the end of the alley. 
 
 


Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Naugatuck River Review - Westfield, Massachusetts


The Naugatuck River Review is a journal of narrative poetry published twice yearly in Westfield, Massachusetts by poet/editor Lori Desrosiers, whose poems have been widely published and who has taught poetry in area colleges.

The recent Summer 2013 collection of poetry, the 10th issue, includes the work of several poets from around the country.  The poems are richly evocative and tell soft, contemplative stories, brooding memories, or things that have happened to you before.

Have a look here at the Naugatuck River Review website for more information on the journal and how to subscribe, and here at Lori Desrosiers' blog for coming events of her own poetry readings.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

More from the Big E - West Springfield, Massachusetts


Lunch time.
 

Charming contestants.
 

Suppertime.
 

Cheering for hatching chicks louder than you've ever heard at the Super Bowl.
 

A newborn gladiator.  He'll be cuter in a little while when he dries out and
gets all yellow and fluffy.  Aww.


Tuesday, September 17, 2013

The Big E - Through Sept. 29th.



It's time for the Eastern States Exposition, or Big E, in West Springfield, Massachusetts, known as New England's "Great State Fair" in which all six New England states participate.  It runs every day  through Sunday, September 29th this year, so you've got plenty of chances to grab that caramel apple, that clam fritter, that Maine baked potato, that new gadget they're demonstrating you just can't do without, or yet another map of Vermont. 

Have a look here at the official website for more info on exhibits, contests, and attractions.

And food vendors.

See you there.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

New Book - Ames Co. - a Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War



This is to announce a new book I'm publishing next month titled The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War.

It will be comprised of two essays previously appearing on this blog, in addition to a third article never before published, and will contain many photographs.   Here is an excerpt from the foreword:


The three articles that comprise this book tell different stories about the Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts, which played an important role as an arms manufacturer during the American Civil War.  Together, they make up a kind of composite of the Northern Civil War experience in the small, but dynamic, universe of a factory town.  We meet Nathan P. Ames and James T. Ames, brothers who founded the firm, the younger burdened with the responsibility after the tragic and grisly death of the older.
We meet two workers in the factory, one of whom, Charles Tracy, was a machinist who left his position to join the army, and came home without a leg—and was awarded the Medal of Honor.  He was cared for by Clara Barton--and comforted by President Abraham Lincoln on a visit to his hospital ward. The other man, Melzar Mosman, just a boy of nineteen, worked in the foundry department forging canon.  He also left to join the army, but after the war would become celebrated for forging bronze statuary, including a number of Civil War monuments.
We meet the townspeople of Chicopee, the minister who hid slaves on the local Underground Railroad, and the high school principal, who purchased a military substitute to fight in his place.  Later, he would become Governor of Massachusetts and the successful defense lawyer of the infamous Lizzie Borden.
 
More on this book when it is available both as an eBook and in paperback.
 

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

A last look at summer...Mystic Aquarium

A last look at summer, with a few of the outdoor residents of the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut.




 
 

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Hard Labor in New England


A few photos in anticipation of the upcoming Labor Day holiday.  Once upon a time, it meant more than the last backyard barbecue of summer.

The Fisk, Chicopee, Massachusetts, likely in the late 1930s.  Image Museum website.
 
 
 
Isaac Prouty Boot & Shoe Co, Spencer, Massachusetts, Spencer Historical Museum Collections. Richard Sugden Library, Spencer, Massachusetts.
 
 
Skinner Mfg. Co., Holyoke, Mass. Image Museum website.  See here for my previous posts on the Skinner silk mills: http://newenglandtravels.blogspot.com/2012/01/william-skinners-silk-mills-holyoke.html
 
 
 
War worker in 1942.  Gilbert Company, New Haven, Connecticut.  Photo Howard Hollem, Office of War Information.  See here for my previous post on women war workers:
 
 
Boys who worked at a cotton mill in North Pownal, Vermont, 1910. 
Lewis Wickes Hine, photographer, Library of Congress
 
 
Eastport, Maine, East Coast Canning Co., 1911,
Lewis Wickes Hine photographer, Library of Congress
 
 
Fiskeville, Rhode Island, Jackson Mill, 1909,
Lewis Wickes Hine photographer, Library of Congress
 
 
There but for the union go I.  Or you.  Happy Labor Day.
 
 
 


Monday, August 19, 2013

Dutch Island Lighthouse - Rhode Island




Dutch Island sits in the West Passage of Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island.  It was originally used as a trading outpost by the Dutch from New Amsterdam (you know it as New York), but the  young United States thought it a good spot to fortify with cannon in case of sea invasion, and these fortifications remained from the Civil War through World War I.
This Dutch Island Lighthouse was built in 1857, to replace an earlier light dating from 1826.

 
A sturdy little 40-plus feet tower nesting on its rock, the light was automated in the 1940s.  Vandalism came in the 1960s and ‘70s, but the locally formed Dutch Island Lighthouse Society came to the rescue and stored the structure.  It resumed operation in 2007.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

George M. Stearns - The Parson's Devil


In this era of well-rehearsed sound bites and video imagery, it is rare to see the true and natural personalities of our public figures.  The picture we get is intentionally artificial, but there was a time when common folk rose in politics and society and became large in the public eye though the force of their own natural personalities.  One such man was George M. Stearns, a lawyer-orator of the nineteenth century.
In his white linen suit, Mr. Stearns dispensed his observations with Twain-like sarcasm. “If a man fell on the sidewalk, he brushed himself off, and went about his business.  If a man falls now he doesn’t get up until he thinks whether he can sue someone for damages.”
George Stearns lamented the overuse of our judicial system over one hundred years ago.  In Clifton Johnson’s The Parsons Devil (1927, Thomas Y. Crowell Company), Stearns is painted as a clever lawyer, a practical-joking character whose sense of humor was his calling card.  From this biography we also get a unique view of the western Massachusetts down of Chicopee in the nineteenth century.
It was in August 1848, only a few months after Chicopee became an incorporated town, that Stearns came here from his boyhood home farther north in the small town of Rowe, where his father was a Unitarian minister -- whereby Johnson titled his book The Parson's Devil.  He was seventeen and began his apprenticeship in the law office of John Wells, who had also been born in Rowe.  Wells later served in the state legislature, and was a future Massachusetts State Supreme Court Judge.
Young George Stearns swept his office, did chores, “read law” and mostly learned what it was like to be suddenly a part of a growing industrial community.  Stearns latched on to Chicopee, in the early years of its industrial might, and he savored it.
“The small brick dwellings along Exchange Street were occupied by the solid residents of the village,” Stearns recalled.  On the hill above the main village of Cabotville, there were woods, a few farmhouses, and dirt paths for roads where “an occasional board was laid down in the early spring to prevent your going knee deep in mud.”
Illustration, Chicopee 1856, original in Edward Bellamy Memorial Association
collection, Chicopee, Mass.
 
Chicopee was a staunch Whig town, where politics was discussed at Joe Bagg’s drugstore.  Abner Abbey read the newspapers aloud, and according to Stearns, much of the Civil War was fought right there over the cracker barrels.
 
Stearns married, had two daughters, and settled in the Springfield Street house which still stands across the street from the mansion that once belonged to his old colleague, George Robinson.  (George Robinson, former Chicopee High School principal and future Governor of Massachusetts, was also a noted attorney who successfully defended Lizzie Borden.  See this previous post.)
 
 
George Robinson
 
 
Though both Georges were cordial with each other, and both members of the Unitarian church, they did not always see eye to eye.  Much later in their careers when Stearns became a figure of the Democratic Party and Robinson in the Republican Party, Robinson supported James Blaine over Grover Cleveland for president.  Stearns remarked, “It reminded me of a pettifogger defending a chicken thief.”
In these days when political accusations are nastier and behavior vile, it seems amazing that “pettifogger” and “chicken thief” were once considered strong language.
Stearns was a master of language.  When he was arguing a case in court, the gallery would fill just to see him.  He was a rascal, and a joker, and a bit of an actor.  He could bring himself to tears in a defense argument, or squash his legal opponent with sarcasm.  At times his reputation for fun haunted him, as biographer Johnson noted, “He used to get angry clean through because the moment he got up to speak, the jurors would settle back expecting him to be funny, and one or more of the asses among them were likely to laugh in the middle of some of his most beautiful and eloquent passages.”
His reputation for silliness was not undeserved.  Stearns once bought the pants right off of Chicopee Savings Bank treasurer and future Chicopee mayor Henry H. Harris, who always kidded about him about his frugality.  Another time he won a bet with Harris, who had to pull Stearns home in a sleigh.
Stearns served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and in the State Senate.  His advice was sought by political leaders in Boston, but Stearns preferred to make his permanent home in Chicopee until 1894, when frail health compelled him to move closer to his Boston physician, and he died in December.  His obituary in The New York Times (January 1, 1895) noted, “He was considered one of the ablest and most eloquent advocates, and one of the readiest and wittiest debaters in the State.  He was widely known as a jury pleader, and had a very extensive criminal practice.”
At that time he left western Massachusetts he lamented, “I’d rather see a piece of Chicopee sky than anything else.”
Stearns Terrace and Henry Harris Street intersect in the area that was still wooded when Stearns came to Chicopee.  The city’s growth might amaze him.  As for our propensity to sue for damages, some things never change.

An earlier version of this article appeared in In Chicopee, a publication of the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, Holyoke, Massachusetts, May 1992.  Photos are in the public domain, from the Image Museum website.