The daylight meteor

The skies over New England were active in the autumn of 1925. The Boston Daily Globe of 16 November 1925 reported on a series of four wind and rain storms that had lashed the Boston area, ruining the sleep of local residents and causing minor damage. But more unusual, for those with their eyes to the sky, was a meteor seen in broad daylight, about 10:30 on the morning of 15 November:

An additional feature of the unusual weather Boston has been enjoying during the past few days consisted of meteors which, with a hiss and a glare of light, fell to earth in three different places, widely separated. One meteor landed in Roslindale, somewhere between the Bellevue water tower and Sunset Hill, and several hundred people spent yesterday in the woods hunting for it. … The second meteor was seen near South Portland, Me. above the State highway … Farmers at Brunswick saw the meteor just before it exploded, and say that it was accompanied by rumblings and a small earthquake. … The third meteor was seen at about the same time, near Keene, N.H.

Newspapers across the state carried observations from readers, including 11-year-old Sturgis Warner, who wrote to the Boston Herald that he had been sitting in the Public Garden when he “happened to look up and saw a ball of fire fall from the sky towards the northwest over Beacon Street. It was light green and had a long tail. I knew it was a meteor.” Residents of Roslindale described a “sharp, hissing swishing noise, immediately followed by a ball of fire falling through the air.” Others described it as “a glowing, glaring ball of golden fire, which dragged a bright tail after it, but left no train in the sky.”

In the days following the unusual sighting, scientists at the Harvard Astronomical Observatory called for the assistance of the public in trying to identify the meteor, eventually gathering and summarizing more than 100 eyewitness reports. Perhaps the most interesting artifact of the unusual event, however, is this personal bookplate of artist Helen Pearson, who witnessed and painted the meteor streaking over pine trees in a flash of brilliant light.

Who was Helen Pearson?

Helen Pearson was born in Portsmouth, N.H. in 1870 to Amos Pearson, a local florist and musician, and his wife Susan, an artist and musician. She grew up surrounded by artists who boarded with her family and trained as a classical pianist. She also attended the Cowles Art School in Boston, which was established in 1883 on Dartmouth Street and was the largest art school in the city for a time. She is perhaps best remembered for her detailed artwork in the book Vignettes of Portsmouth: Being Representations of Divers Historic Places in Old Portsmouth, published in 1913. Pearson lived in Portsmouth for most of her life and was a supporter of the arts and music. She died in July 1949 at her family home on Broad Street in Portsmouth and is buried in the Harmony Grove Cemetery.

Bookplate collecting

In the late nineteenth and early to middle decades of the twentieth centuries, bookplate collecting was an extremely popular hobby. Although bookplates serve a useful purpose (identifying one’s books so that they can be returned), many are also tiny works of art. Subjects illustrated on bookplates range widely—everything from family crests to portraits to business interests to pastimes. In addition to designing her own bookplate, Helen Pearson was also a collector. She was listed in the Bulletin of the American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers in 1932 as being interested in “general exchanges, especially those of artistic merit. Personal plate is astronomical depicting a famous daylight meteor.” Her bookplate collection was bequeathed to the Portsmouth Public Library and can be seen on their website.