by CJ Haggard, Library Assistant

The Massachusetts Historical Society holds a remarkable set of liquor license petitions from eighteenth-century Boston. The petitioners wrote to the Boston Selectmen and the Court of General Sessions of the Peace for Suffolk County in the hope of obtaining a license to retail liquor or keep a tavern. Of the petitions, sixteen are written by men and nine by women, with each detailing the particular circumstances and requests of the petitioners. The petitioners give the reasons they must obtain a license, describe how neighbors and friends are willing to help them get started, and ask the Selectmen and the Justices to look on their situations with compassion. Most interestingly to me, however, is that most petitioners specified the location of their proposed tavern or shop, whether it was a rented venue or their own house.

While looking through these petitions, I had the idea to map each location to identify patterns and see their modern-day position. Using the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center’s digital 1769 map of Boston with a modern overlay, I successfully mapped the locations of most of the proposed liquor-selling locations in the petitions held by the MHS. You can view them on Google Maps or on the map below.

The map I made reveals that these institutions were spread out around colonial Boston, ranging from the North End to Boston Neck. The locations are not exact, as I often had little to go off of other than a street name or nearby landmark. A few petitions are also missing from the map, as they either did not give a location or I was not able to figure out where they were based on the directions provided. These petitions are noted as such in the key.

I also enjoy looking at the map and seeing what stands there today. For example: Joseph Goldthwait’s house, where he kept a tavern “for the Accomodation of Gentlemen from the Country,” would have been remarkably close to the modern-day location of Bova’s Bakery, a favorite of mine. Although it is unclear exactly where his house stood in 1767, he describes his situation as being “in back Street leading to Charlestown Ferry.” The end of Back Street (now Salem Street) closest to the Charlestown Ferry is exactly where Bova’s is today.

The Admiral Vernon Tavern, or the Vernon’s Head Tavern, also has a modern equivalent. Thomas Hubbart’s 1764 petition describes the tavern as being on King Street, now State Street, which led from the Old State House down to Long Wharf. In The Crooked and Narrow Streets of Boston, Annie Haven Thwing goes into more detail about the tavern’s location, stating it “was on the northeast corner of Merchants Row.” Merchant’s Row still exists today by Faneuil Hall. Even more excitingly, the lot at the northeast corner of Merchant’s Row is a modern-day bar called Clarke’s at Faneuil Hall, mirroring its colonial use. Although the Admiral Vernon Tavern is no more, one only needs to visit Clarke’s to walk in the footsteps of Thomas Hubbart himself.

I hope my map sparks some interest in these incredible petitions in our collection. The peek into colonial Boston they provide is fascinating, and I encourage anyone interested to visit the MHS and learn more.

Further Reading: On our library catalog ABIGAIL, you can view listings for Joseph Goldthwait’s petition and Thomas Hubbart’s petition. If you would like to view the listings for other petitions, you can click on the “Taverns (Inns) Massachusetts Boston” subject heading attached to both Goldthwait’s and Hubbart’s listings. All petitions appear in our holdings of Miscellaneous Bound Manuscripts from 1764 to 1773.

by Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

When Ellis Dexter Atwood died in 1950, 1,500 people attended his funeral. What made him so beloved? One reason was the Edaville Railroad in South Carver, Massachusetts.

The story of Edaville began in 1941 when Atwood, one of the country’s leading cranberry growers, purchased historic railroad cars, tracks, and equipment from a defunct Maine railway. Atwood knew these narrow-gauge cars would be ideal for working his cranberry bogs. By 1947, he had transferred this equipment to his 1,800-acre estate in South Carver and built 5.5 miles of track for transporting supplies in and cranberries out. He also offered free rides to friends, and these rides soon became a popular weekend tourist attraction. Just three years later over 2,000 people a day were visiting Edaville.

Railroad enthusiasts were, even then, fascinated by these vintage narrow-gauge railroads, which at two feet wide were less than half the standard. Three months after Edaville opened, one such enthusiast named Martin Schmidt wrote Atwood for more information, and Atwood sent him some mimeographed promotional literature on the history of narrow-gauge railroads and Edaville in particular. Those papers are here at the MHS.

This unassuming collection turned out to be a lot of fun to research. I found some terrific contemporary write-ups on Edaville in Popular Mechanics (1949) and The Baltimore & Ohio Magazine (1950).

Railfans will find a lot of detail in this small collection to interest them, but my main takeaway is that Atwood was funny! I love to find humor in historical manuscripts, which can sometimes feel dry and inaccessible. The collection includes a hilarious proto FAQ written by Atwood. Among the usual questions about hours and directions, we also find these:

By Nancy Heywood, Lead Archivist for Digital and Web Initiatives

MHS recently launched the MHS Digital Archive, a system that preserves and provides access to born-digital files and reformatted audiovisual material. Our last blog post provides an overview of the Digital Archive and how to search its contents. This post shares some specific examples for adventurous readers to explore!

MHS’s digital preservation system is a multi-faceted tool that allows us to responsibly ingest (accept), describe, manage, migrate, monitor, and make digital files accessible.  The availability of reformatted audiovisual files via the MHS Digital Archive is especially significant because we don’t have any other way to make audio tapes; cassettes; and VHS, beta, and 16mm films accessible to researchers.   

Video about the history of Suffolk Downs

Item: This stand-alone digital video created in 2023, Suffolk Downs: Race Through Time, focuses on the history of the East Boston racetrack and legalized betting and horseracing in Massachusetts.

Example of a digital video: When MHS accepted this digital video, we knew we would be storing the file and the metadata in our digital preservation system and making it available via the MHS Digital Archive.

Explore in the MHS Digital Archive or start with the catalog record in ABIGAIL and follow the link. 

Spiritualist session recordings from the Leslie Shah Qualls papers

Collection: Leslie Shah Qualls (1903-1989) was a spiritualist who conducted psychic readings and mediumship.  Her papers mainly consist of her spiritual writings but also contain audio recordings of spiritualist sessions she led. 

Example of reformatted audio tapes: The original open reel audio tapes (nine audio tapes, seven with content on both sides) were converted to 16 digital files to provide access to the content. These tapes were in poor condition and required reformatting to preserve the information on them. Even if the tapes were in better condition, archival repositories don’t generally make original AV materials available in reading rooms because of the significant logistics of providing playback equipment for old formats to researchers, as well as the risk of damage or deterioration to the originals during repeated playbacks.

Explore in the MHS Digital Archive or examine the guide to the full collection and follow a link to a specific audio file.

Massachusetts Moderators Association records

Collection: The Massachusetts Moderators Association was founded in 1957 and provides resources and collaboration opportunities to town moderators.  The collection was donated in 2023 and is comprised of both physical and digital files.

Example of born-digital files: The digital materials within the Massachusetts Moderators Association were created as electronic documents in formats such as PDF and open-doc spreadsheets. These files include meeting minutes, lists, and digital files relating to various handbooks to help those leading town meeting sessions.

Explore in the MHS Digital Archive or read the guide to the full collection and follow the links to the digital files.

by Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

This will be my eighth and final post about the Perry-Clarke additions, and in the hot seat today is Susan Cabot (Lowell) Sohier (1823-1868). Her daughter Alice married into the Clarke family, which is how Susan’s papers became part of this collection.

The oldest child of John Amory Lowell, Susan was a scion of the famous Lowell family of Boston. She and her husband, William Sohier, had six children, three of whom tragically pre-deceased them. Susan herself died of tuberculosis at the age of 45.

But I’d like to end this blog series on a fun note. Susan’s papers include a manuscript volume entitled “Preferences,” a kind of guest book filled out by her friends and family members beginning in 1862. Among the contributors were noted Unitarian clergymen Edward Everett Hale, Henry Wilder Foote, and Robert Collyer.

Rather than just sign, individuals were asked to name a preference in each of 24 categories. The categories were: poet, prose writer, occupation, amusement, vacation destination, method of travel, “time of rising,” study, language, character in history, character in fiction, living preacher, animal, musical instrument, flower, system of government, name, dish, drink, extravagance, economy, proverb or quotation, novel, and “year of life to live over if forced to – this not penitentially.” (If there were a category for favorite question, the last one would be mine.)

Rules for the game included “You must tell the truth” and “Answer as if you had unlimited power of choice, and were in no fear of criticism or punishment.” Many contributors had fun with their responses. Here’s a selection:

Method of travel: “Cars when I’m not upset”; “Driving a 2 seated vehicle with 2 agreeable companions who shall do the talking”; “Balloon”

Time of rising: “After my second morning nap”; “I heartily enjoy getting up early in summer but dont do it”; “Just before breakfast”

Study: “The faults of others”

Language: “The language I speak, Yankee”

Character in history: “I hate history & all the characters in it”

Living preacher: “Anyone who can keep me awake”

Animal: “Almost all animals at a respectful distance”

System of government: “I haven’t any choice really” (from a woman); “Absolute Monarchy myself the Queen”; “Petticoat Government”

Names: “Clarissa Jane, for a boy decidedly Hezekiah”

Extravagance: “Gas bill”

Year of life to live over: “15 years ago” (from a 15-year-old); “25 as seen from 45”; “The year I fell in love”

There were a few consistent favorites. Popular authors included Sir Walter Scott, Baron Macaulay, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Dickens, Shakespeare, and Charlotte M. Yonge. Horses, dogs, and cats topped the animal category. A few people listed the human voice as their preferred musical instrument.

This volume definitely reminds me of the early days of email and those questionnaires our friends forwarded to us. What would your answers be?

by Brandon McGrath-Neely, Library Assistant

When family and friends come to visit Boston, there are a few places we always visit. We wind through the North End’s narrow streets, grabbing treats at Bova’s Bakery. We stand at the site of the Boston Massacre and look up at the Old State House, with modern buildings soaring behind it. And in between those two stops, we always visit the Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

The Marketplace, which includes Faneuil Hall and its younger siblings—Quincy Market, North Market, and South Market—began when merchant and slave trader Peter Faneuil constructed Faneuil Hall in 1742. Over the next 283 years, the building would change in size, style and substance (and a name change is currently under discussion). The collections of the MHS were actually stored in its attic from 1793 to 1794! Luckily, our materials had moved elsewhere before a series of fires and expansions changed the building—especially an 1806 expansion by famed architect Charles Bulfinch. The three market buildings were added between 1826 and 1827.

As both the Faneuil Hall Marketplace and the city of Boston grew, the Marketplace fell into disrepair. In drastic need of revitalization, the architectural design firm Benjamin Thompson and Associates was selected in 1971 to breathe new life into the iconic landmark. When the project was completed in 1978, the Marketplace was closed to vehicles and instead emphasized foot traffic. Travelers from all over the world can now wander through everything the site has to offer. According to Newsweek, it is the 10^th most popular tourist attraction in the country. Each year, around 18 million visitors come to explore its food, stores, and attractions.

The records of this redesign project are held by the Massachusetts Historical Society in the Ben and Jane Thompson Faneuil Hall Marketplace Records. The rich set of materials help show how the older versions of the Marketplace have changed to become the gathering place we know and love today. Whether Faneuil Hall is on your bucket list, or you’ve been a thousand times, the records offer new ways to experience the market.

If you’re interested in architecture, you can browse the many designs and planning documents, including elevations, floorplans, and images of scale models. If you want to learn about advertising and marketing, you can explore the large number of press materials and see how Faneuil Hall Marketplace became the most visited location in Massachusetts. And if you just like looking at old photos of Boston, the rare images of Quincy Market under construction are a delightful peek behind the scenes.

The Faneuil Hall Marketplace Records are some of my favorite materials at the MHS, because they allow you to experience the iconic landmark in so many ways. They were also processed using the More Product, Less Process approach, described in this Beehive post, which makes the whole collection feel like finding hidden treasures tucked away for decades. So next time you bring a friend to Faneuil Hall, bring them by the MHS to see how it grew up!