HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

105 years ago this month, Irish President Eamon De Valera embarked on an 18-month tour of the United States, starting with a visit to Boston. His goals were to raise funds for the Irish Republic, gain international recognition, and garner support for Irish independence from British rule. De Valera’s visit to Boston included a massive rally at Fenway Park, a speech to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and visits to historical sites. Despite facing challenges, such as his questionable immigration status and opposition from Yankee-aligned politicians, the tour was a success, laying the groundwork for nearly a century of American support for Irish republicanism before the Good Friday accords finally brought the Troubles to an end. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/303/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

On the first anniversary of D-Day, Boston was feeling festive. Yes, there was a somber editorial cartoon in the Globe picturing an allied cemetery in Normandy to remind people of the sacrifices that the nation had made, but Germany had just surrendered, making the sacrifice seem worthwhile. Now, on D+1 (or was it D+366?), the city would turn out to hail a conquering hero, as General George S Patton, Junior set foot on American soil for the first time in two and a half years. His speech in Boston honored the city’s wounded veterans but managed to deeply offend gold star families whose sons, fathers, and brothers had died under Patton’s command. Was this a simple slip of the tongue or a symptom of a deeper and more concerning malady, a closely guarded and dark secret? Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/302/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Joseph Warren Revere was a Boston boy, but a military career kept him from spending much of his adult life here.  He was the grandson of the famous Paul Revere and named after the secular saint Joseph Warren.  As a young Navy officer on the USS Constitution, he fought slavers and pirates, discovered buried treasure, met a czar, and almost killed a king.  Falling in love with California while serving in the Mexican-American War, he made a small fortune during the Gold Rush, while getting mired in scandal.  By the time he served as a union general in the US Civil War, Revere had fought under the flag of three nations.  He had seen war on four continents, discovered a fifth, and traveled to all of them.  He had dined sumptuously with monarchs and nobles, and broken bread with native peoples around the world.  He was a skilled artist and map maker, and an aggressive combat leader.  None of those accomplishments, however, could save his career from an ignominious end amongst charges of cowardice after the battle of Chancellorsville. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/301/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Did you feel an earthquake in Boston on April 5, 2024? Depending on where you were at the time, you might have felt nothing or you might have noticed a mild tremor. While we think of Boston earthquakes as a punchline and damaging quakes as a California problem, that hasn’t always been the case. Imagine an earthquake that comes on with the sound of rolling thunder, one where the ground heaved like waves on an angry sea, throwing people to the ground, opening up fissures in the earth, and triggering a tsunami that affects distant shores. This was the experience of Boston during the great Cape Ann earthquake of 1755, and the effects of a similar seismic shock in modern Boston could be simply catastrophic. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/300/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

During the bicentennial celebrations in 1976, Boston bustled with fireworks, concerts, and historical reenactments, while a unique spectacle quietly unfolded at the Old North Church. The iconic lanterns, forever linked to Paul Revere’s midnight ride, were illuminated not by candlelight, but by the distant light of a star some 200 light-years away. This episode explores the technological challenges involved in capturing starlight and converting it into an electrical signal that traveled thousands of miles, as well as the promotional challenges for Hawaiian officials who wanted to feel like part of the bicentennial celebration. Buckle up, as we journey from the volcanic peak of Mauna Kea to the heart of revolutionary Boston, all under the ethereal glow of a distant star. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/299/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Eclipses happen when the moon passes between the sun and the earth during the daytime, briefly blocking the light of the sun from the face of the earth. Over the past few years, observers in the US have been treated to every flavor of solar eclipse: a partial in 2021 when part of the sun’s disc remains unobscured; a total eclipse in 2017, when viewers in the narrow path of totality experienced daytime darkness, and an annular eclipse just last fall, when a ring of fire hung in the cold, bright sky. In honor of the April 2024 total eclipse, I’m sharing a clip that cohost emerita Nikki and I recorded within the first year of this podcast about some of the earliest experiences of eclipses here in Boston, most notably in 1780 and 1806. I’ll also share a clip about an unrelated phenomenon that darkened the skies over Boston for a second time in 1780, then again in 1881, 1950, and several times in the past 5 years. This was no eclipse however, but rather a much more terrestrial effect. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/298/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

This week I’m pleased to be able to share a recent talk from the Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury about recent archaeological discoveries at Shirley Place that help shed light on the lives of enslaved residents at the 18th century governor’s residence, as well as evidence of the home’s original location before it was moved into its current position in the 19th century.  The presenter is past podcast guest Joe Bagley, the archaeologist for the city of Boston, who has led a series of digs at the Shirley house and at the house’s original location across Shirley street.  This work is important because written records have only revealed the identity of one of the Africans who were enslaved at the house by Royal Governor William Shirley.  In the talk, Bagley explains how discoveries of animal bones, forgotten paving stones, and a cowrie shell connect the dots to the enslaved lives that history otherwise overlooks.  He also shares stone flakes and pottery shards that remind us that the history of Shirley Place long predates William Shirley, encompassing the Massachusett people who first called it home. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/297/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

I’m pleased to share a recent talk called "Cotton Mather and the Women He Loved" that was part of the Congregational Library and Archive's Valentines Day celebration. Helen Gelinas spoke about Cotton Mather and the women he was closest to: his three wives, his daughters, and his sisters, as well as his lifelong mission to understand the biblical Eve, the prototype for all women in his universe.  Helen examined who he was behind closed doors, as a husband and father, and she challenged us to reconsider our assumptions that Cotton Mather would have been a tyrant over his wife and a strong disciplinarian who ruled his children with a rod. She also shared the surprising insight that between wives, Cotton Mather was one of Boston’s most eligible widowers, who was pursued aggressively by suitors. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/296/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In this episode, I’m joined by Professor Adrian Chastain Weimer, author of the recent book A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle Against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire. The book focuses on the period just after King Charles II returned the Stuarts to the English throne, during which he when he sought revenge against Boston Puritans for their perceived role in the execution of his father. Decades before the absolute rule of Edmund Andros, the crown sent four royal commissioners to Boston with secret orders that would upend every facet of public life, from voting to worship to the code of laws. Our conversation explores how the colonists defended their liberty within the constitutional system of colonial Massachusetts under restoration rule. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/295/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Despite the name, Plymouth Hospital was a South End institution. As the first training school for Black nurses in segregated Boston, Plymouth provided a needed service to an underserved community, led by a medical pioneer. Dr. Cornelius Nathanial Garland moved to Boston from the deep south to seek opportunity, but while he found opportunity in the Hub, he also found a deeply segregated medical establishment. To fight against this system and provide opportunities for Black Bostonians in medicine, he founded a hospital and nursing school. However, the most radical civil rights leader in Boston would accuse Garland of reinforcing that very same system of segregated medicine. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/294/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In the last episode, we talked about Boston’s first water sources, from rainfall and natural springs to a simple wooden aqueduct connecting Jamaica Pond to downtown Boston. This time, we’re picking up where episode 292 left off. As Boston grew in the early 19th century, it quickly outgrew its existing water supply, which was dreadfully polluted anyway. The city was left looking outside its boundaries for a water source that was large and plentiful enough to supply the needs of a growing American city, and debating whether that source should be owned by a governmental entity or a private company. This week, we’ll look at the celebration that came with the solution to that problem, and the drawn out debates and hard work that enabled Boston to supply its citizens with a truly public source of water. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/293/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

This is the first of a three-part history of Boston’s water supply. First up is the early history of water in Boston, from its reliance on natural springs to the construction of the first aqueduct. We’ll compare today’s pure, plentiful drinking water to the challenges that early Bostonians faced in obtaining clean water. First, we’ll look at natural springs, hand-dug wells, and cisterns in early Boston, but as the city grew, these sources became increasingly scarce and polluted. Then we’ll talk about new technologies at the turn of the 19th century, such as drilled artesian wells and the Boston Aqueduct, which brought water from Jamaica Pond into the city. However, these new technologies were controlled by private companies, only providing water to the wealthiest Bostonians, leaving most residents desperate for a new, public source of water in the mid-19th century. Later episodes will explore the near-miracle that introducing a public water supply from the Cochituate reservoir represented and the engineering marvel of our modern Quabbin reservoir. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/292/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Jane Lyden Rousseau led the team of archaeologists who studied the crypts at Old North Church during a 2023 restoration. While none of the burials were disturbed, her team was able to carefully study the contents of each crypt, learning more about death rituals and burial customs in colonial New England. In a talk she gave as part of the Old North digital speaker series in December, she shared more about the history of the Old North crypts, as well as what her team learned by looking within. Among the questions that will be answered are when Old North buried congregants beneath the floor of the church, how many people had their final resting places there, and how church sextons made room for a staggering number of burials in a very limited space. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/291/ Support the show: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

I had originally planned to release an interview with an expert this week where we debunked some of the most common myths about the destruction of the tea. Events conspired against me, however. Luckily, the rest of Boston has the 250th anniversary of the Tea Party covered. There are commemorative events taking place around the city and throughout December, so we’ll look at a different detail. In all the hoopla about the tea, it’s easy to forget that the tea ships also carried other cargoes. In this week’s episode, we’ll revisit two classic stories about other cartoes that the tea ships brought to Boston. First, we’ll hear about Phillis Wheatley’s book of poetry, which was on the Dartmouth, through the story of enslaved artist Scipio Moorhead. After that, we’ll learn about Boston’s first street lamps, which were on the forgotten fourth tea ship, the William. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/290/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Was Cotton Mather a victim of 18th century cancel culture? In December 1719, Bostonians were astounded at the spectacle of the northern lights dancing in the sky, a sight that nobody alive could remember seeing before. One of the Bostonians who watched in astonishment was Cotton Mather. Confronted with this unprecedented natural phenomenon, Mather was torn. His instinct was to see signs and portents in the aurora borealis, but the world around him was changing, and his fellow natural philosophers were more likely to see the clockwork rules of Newtonian physics than the hand of God or the devil moving the universe around them. Mather’s report focuses on the secular experience of the phenomenon, but had he really changed his tune, or was he following the new political correctness of the modern era? Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/289/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Daniel Dain is the author of an ambitious new history of Boston, called A History of Boston. A few years ago, a listener got in touch with the show to say that he was a lawyer by trade, but working on a manuscript on Boston history by night. When he shared the manuscript with me, I was shocked by it’s sweeping scope, and impressed when a bound copy found its way to my door earlier this year. A History of Boston blends his interest in urbanism and his deep love of Boston history to describe a series of boom and bust cycles in the longterm health and viability of Boston. I will ask him not only what has happened in Boston’s past but also what challenges and opportunities he sees on the horizon. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/288/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

190 years ago, Bostonians awoke to an unexpected light in the sky before dawn on November 13, 1833. Some began their morning routines, thinking the sun had risen, a few dashed outside to douse the fire they expected to see consuming a neighbor’s house, and some simply looked out the window in curiosity. When they looked up to the heavens, they saw an unparalleled celestial spectacle. A meteor shower of unprecedented intensity erupted in the night sky, filling it with tens of thousands of shooting stars per hour, which observers said fell as thickly as snowflakes in a winter storm. Star Wars fans might picture the Eye of Aldhani from episode 6 of Andor, a spectacular feat of special effects that allowed the protagonists to make their escape from the empire during a meteor shower that lit up the sky. The real 1833 meteor shower was no less spectacular. The event, which came to be known as the Leonid meteor storm, was one of the most remarkable astronomical events in recorded history, both because of its breathtaking beauty and its importance to the development of science. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/287/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In King Hancock, the Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father, Brooke Barbier paints the portrait of a walking contradiction: one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, but a man of the people; a merchant who made his fortune in the warm embrace of empire, but signed his name first for independence; and an enslaver who called for freedom. Perhaps most of all, he’s portrayed as a moderate in a town of radicals. Hancock didn’t leave behind the same carefully preserved, indexed, and cross referenced lifetime of papers like our old friend John Adams. He wasn’t immortalized as the indispensable man, like George Washington. But Brooke weaves together the details that can be found in portraits, artifacts, official records, and surviving letters to create a nuanced portrait of a founder who should be remembered for more than a famous signature. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/286/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In this episode, professor Patrick O’Brien of the University of Tampa will be examining the loyalist experience of our Revolutionary War, mostly from the perspectives of women and enslaved African Americans. From our vantage point 250 years later, it’s easy to view the War for Independence as a simple story of good and bad.  The good patriots battled the bad British from Lexington to Yorktown, until we had a country to call our own.  Look a little closer, however, and the story isn’t so simple.  Many of the tens of thousands of loyalists who were eventually forced to flee the new United States had roots that went back a century and a half in this country, every bit as long as the patriots who drove them out.  And, as Dr. O’Brien points out, many of those who left everything behind to start new lives in London or Halifax didn’t really have much say in the matter, as enslaved people, indigenous groups, and women were more or less forced to adopt the political positions of the white men in their lives.  Dr. O’Brien will bring those stories to light by focusing on a few prominent Boston loyalist families. This talk was delivered as part of Old North Illuminated's Digital Speaker Series.  Many thanks to ONI and Dr. O'Brien for sharing it with us. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory/285/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Isabella Stewart Gardner was a consummate collector, generous philanthropist, and rabid Red Sox fan.  Today, she’s best known as the namesake of an art museum in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood (and if we’re being honest, the museum is probably best known for a famous 1990 heist).  This week, Jake interviews author Emily Franklin, whose new novel The Lioness of Boston explores the person behind the Gardner fortune.  They discuss the great romance, tragedy, and scandal of Isabella’s life, the different personas she tried on throughout different eras of her life, and her obsession with the idea of a legacy.  Emily will tell us why Boston at first turned up its nose at wealthy young Isabella, but later came to embrace the flamboyant and eccentric Mrs Jack as one of our most colorful and generous characters. Emily will also describe what makes historical fiction different from biography, and the freedom and limitations that the genre brings.   Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/283/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

This week, Aaron Stark joins the show to discuss his new book Disrupting Time: Industrial Combat, Espionage, and the Downfall of a Great American Company, which chronicles an attempt by a foreign power to infiltrate, emulate, and eventually annihilate a great American company. In the late 19th century, watches were at the forefront of technological innovation, and the Waltham Watch Company made some of the finest watches in the world. Unlike their Swiss competitors, whose products were fancy, handcrafted works of art, the Watham company specialized in mass produced, affordable, and reliable watches for the masses. At an 1876 World’s Fair, they announced their arrival on the world’s stage, and the world took notice. The Swiss, in particular, took notice, and they took it by sending spies to steal the secrets of Waltham’s success. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/284/ Support the show: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Isabella Stewart Gardner was a consummate collector, generous philanthropist, and rabid Red Sox fan.  Today, she’s best known as the namesake of an art museum in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood (and if we’re being honest, the museum is probably best known for a famous 1990 heist).  This week, Jake interviews author Emily Franklin, whose new novel The Lioness of Boston explores the person behind the Gardner fortune.  They discuss the great romance, tragedy, and scandal of Isabella’s life, the different personas she tried on throughout different eras of her life, and her obsession with the idea of a legacy.  Emily will tell us why Boston at first turned up its nose at wealthy young Isabella, but later came to embrace the flamboyant and eccentric Mrs Jack as one of our most colorful and generous characters. Emily will also describe what makes historical fiction different from biography, and the freedom and limitations that the genre brings.   Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/283/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Enjoy two classic stories this week. First up is the story of the Cocoanut Grove fire. In November 1942, Boston was on a wartime footing, business was booming, and the streets were packed with soldiers and sailors on their way to fronts around the world. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a fire broke out at the popular Cocoanut Grove nightclub, and in the moments that followed, 492 people were killed, making it Boston’s most deadly disaster. After that, the podcast visits December 1917, when another world war raged in Europe. When confusing reports of a disaster to the north reached Boston, the city sprang into action, loading a special train with doctors, nurses, and medical supplies. After the most massive explosion before the advent of the atom bomb, Boston rushed relief to the town of Halifax. In return, they send us a Christmas tree each year. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/282/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/ Maui relief: https://www.mauinuistrong.info/support/

80 years ago this month, on a tiny Pacific island, a legend was born. In the darkness before dawn on August 2, 1943, a Japanese destroyer rammed and sank a small, plywood boat commanded by a 26 year old Lieutenant Junior Grade named John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In the hours and days that followed, young Jack Kennedy would prove to be a true American hero, swimming mile after mile through shark and crocodile infested waters, while towing an injured crew member by a strap clenched in his teeth. In the ensuing decades, PT-109 has become one of the most famous small craft in US Navy history, largely due to Kennedy’s actions. However, it also became a craven political ploy, when JFK and his father Joseph Kennedy used the story of PT-109 to launch a political career that would carry Jack Kennedy to the Oval Office. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/281/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

This week, enjoy three classic stories about Bostonians and their adventures on the Pacific Ocean. First, we’ll hear about the voyages of the Columbia to the Pacific Northwest starting in 1787, then we’ll move on to the Congregational missionaries who descended on Hawaii in 1823, and finally, we’ll talk about the Boston whaler who brought the industrial revolution to Spanish California. While you’re listening to these three classic stories, see if you can figure out what I’m working on that would involve a Brookline native on a small boat in the Solomon Islands in August 1943! Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/280/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

This week's story ties one of modern Boston’s iconic Freedom Trail sites to the earliest days of English settlement in the Shawmut Peninsula. It’s a story that ties the first Puritan to die in Boston to the hated Royal governor Edmund Andros, and it ties some of the earliest non-English immigrants in Boston to Ben Franklin and Abigail Adams through the invention of two local industries. King’s Chapel is beloved in Boston today, but it was seen as an unwelcome invasion when it was first proposed in 1686. In this week’s show, we’ll look at how Boston found room for an unwanted church, how the church was reinvented three times, and how it launched local glassmaking and founded the granite industry in Quincy. We’ll also see where you can still find the last traces of the original, wooden King’s Chapel hiding inside the walls of a more modern church, but not here in Boston. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/279/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Between the John Adams miniseries on HBO and the musical 1776, everyone knows that John Adams was one of the leading voices for independence in the Continental Congress. And along with negotiating the treaty of Paris and keeping the US out of the Quasi War, Adams always considered the Declaration one of his chief accomplishments. 50 years after Congress adopted it, John Adams remembered it on the morning of July 4, 1826, remarking “it is a great day. It is a good day.” That evening, he died, with many sources reporting that his last words were “Jefferson still lives.” He was wrong, though. Earlier that day, Jefferson had woken briefly, asked “is it the fourth” and then declined further medical treatment before slipping into a coma and himself dying. For someone who was so closely associated with America’s founding document, why did John Adams believe we should celebrate it on July 2nd? And how did his closest and most trusted advisor, his wife Abigail, urge him on toward independence in a letter that history remembers for other reasons? Let’s find out! Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/278/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Thomas Jefferson visited Boston in 1784, arriving in town on June 18th. That also happened to be the same day when Abigail Adams left her home in Quincy to start making her way to France to join John at his diplomatic posting, though her ship didn’t actually leave Boston until the next day. In this episode, we’ll explore how the friendship that was kindled during their single day together in Boston carried on through their shared months in France, their decades of correspondence, and even through the years when Jefferson and John Adams were feuding. We’ll also examine Thomas Jefferson as an early New England tourist, who explored not only Boston, but also New Haven, Portsmouth, and other key regional population centers, as well as taking a fun look at his epic Boston shopping spree just days before he too boarded a boat to Europe. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/277/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

The new play “Revolution’s Edge” will debut at Old North Church in June 2023. It tells the story of three Bostonians and their families on the eve of the Revolution. Mather Byles is the Loyalist rector of Old North Church, Cato is an African American man who’s enslaved by Byles, and John Pulling is a whiggish ship’s captain and member of the Old North vestry. The three men have very different stations in life, but they all have young families with intertwined lives, and on April 18, 1775, they all had very different decisions to make about those lives. My guests this week are Patrick Gabridge, producing artistic director of the Plays in Place theater company, and Nikki Stewart, executive director of Old North Illuminated. Together, they’ll tell us how this, um, revolutionary new drama came to be. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/276/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

If you walk down Mount Auburn Street in Cambridge, you might notice a small stone marker that states, “on this spot in the year 1000, Leif Erikson built his house in Vineland.” You might be surprised to learn that Leif Erikson had a house in Cambridge, and if so, you’ll be even more surprised to learn that the lower Charles River was the seat of a thriving Norse city around the turn of the first millennium. Learn about Harvard professor Eben Norton Horsford’s theory that the legendary Viking city of Norumbega was situated along the Charles River in this week’s podcast! Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/275/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Thanks to the Hamilton musical, it’s almost impossible to hear the names Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy without bursting into song. The play made the three eldest daughters of Philip Schuyler famous, and in this episode we’re talking about the first two sisters, but mostly just Angelica. Fans know that there was a flirtation between Angelica and Hamilton, but that relationship was exaggerated for the show. Angelica’s actual romance and marriage were downplayed for the show, but it was this union that brought Angelica Schuyler Church to Boston, where she lived for over two years under an assumed name. What was she doing here, and who was the mysterious John Carter who escorted her here? Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/274/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Spring in Boston means baseball, and this week we're talking about the time in 1874 when the Boston Red Stockings tried to bring America’s national pastime to Britain.  120 years before the World Baseball Classic, Boston’s biggest baseball promoter did his level best to get the cricket fans in “jolly old” hooked on his game… and the fact that he could sell them all the mitts, bats, and gloves they would need was just a happy accident, I’m sure.  Red Stockings pitcher and future sporting goods magnate Al Spalding led the team on the World Baseball Tour, but would they be able to convert English strikers to batters and bowlers to pitchers?  And for the team, would their nearly two month long diversion mean the end of their pennant race for 1874? Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/273/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

John Adams later described the prosecution of William Corbet as a case “of an extraordinary Character, in which I was engaged and which cost me no small Portion of Anxiety.” In 1769, four common sailors were brought into Boston to stand trial for murder. The victim was an officer in the royal navy, and the crime had taken place just off Cape Ann, almost within sight of home. As Boston suffered under military occupation, could a military victim receive justice in a radicalized Boston? And what really happened on that ship near Marblehead? Had the dead officer really just been searching for cargo that the captain hadn’t declared and paid customs on? Or were they up to something darker, like illegally kidnapping Massachusetts sailors and forcing them to serve in the Royal Navy? Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/272/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory

On April 9, 1863, a shooting was carried out in a basement just off of Court Street, behind Boston’s Old City Hall. The gunman was a Union cavalry officer, who belonged to one of Brahmin Boston’s most wealthy families. The victim was a new Irish American recruit in his brigade. The shooting would result in accusations of cowardice and an execution, but was either justified? Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/271 Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory

Just a quick bonus episode, so I can tell you about a change to my personal life and what it means for the show.

Starting in 1884, audiences of veterans, schoolchildren, and everyday Bostonians streamed into a cavernous, castle-like building on Tremont Street in the South End to witness the closest thing to virtual reality that existed at the time. The building still exists, though a series of renovations have rendered it much more ordinary and less palatial than it was back then. The painting still exists too, and it still offers an immersive experience for visitors that blends reality and art, but not in Boston anymore. The building was known as the Cyclorama, and it was purpose built to hold the painting, which was also known as the cyclorama, one of the most audacious artistic endeavors of the 19th century. Together, they commemorated the turning point of the bloody Civil War that had ended two decades earlier. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/270/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Annie L. Burton was an entrepreneur and restaurateur, who moved to Boston as a young woman after spending her childhood enslaved on an Alabama plantation. Annie spent decades as a domestic servant, first in the south, and then in the north, in Newton, the South End, Wellesley, Jamaica Plain, and other neighborhoods in and around Boston. For most Black women in the years and decades after emancipation, cooking, cleaning, raising children, and washing and ironing for white families were among the only opportunities available for paid work, making Annie’s experience utterly typical. Two things make her life unique: her decision to bet on herself and open a series of restaurants, first in Florida, then in Park Square in Boston, and then in a number of New England resort towns; and her decision, just after the turn of the 20th century, to put pen to page and write her story down and publish it, preserving the details of her life in a way that wasn’t available to most of her peers. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/269/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Joseph Lee was a hotelier, caterer, and one of the richest men in his adopted hometown of Newton. By the time of his death in 1908, Lee had worked as a servant, a baker, and for the National Coast Survey; he had worked on ships, in hotels, and at amusement parks. He had earned a vast fortune in hotels, lost most of it, and earned another one through his patented inventions that helped change the way Americans eat. He had entertained English nobles and American presidents. And he had raised three daughters and one son, who was a star Ivy League tackle before graduating from Harvard. If you make bread at home, or meatballs, or fried chicken, or casserole, you are the beneficiary of the technology Joseph Lee developed. That would be a remarkable life for anyone, but Joseph Lee was enslaved in South Carolina until he was about 15 years old, making his accomplishments even more remarkable. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/268/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In the 1760s, the town gaol (jail) where prisoners were held while awaiting trial was a cold, dark, and truly terrifying edifice on Queen Street, just up the hill from the Old State House. When a fire was discovered in the jailhouse just after 10pm on January 30, 1769, it briefly became the focal point of the long-simmering tensions between the town and the occupying British soldiers that would eventually culminate in the Boston Massacre. Who deliberately set the fire in the jail, and why were some of the prisoners grievously injured before they could be rescued? Who was responsible for patrolling the streets of a city under military occupation? What was the legal role of the occupiers during a fire emergency, and how did the fire at the old Boston jail become a surprising story of cooperation between the rival factions in Boston? Listen now for all those answers and more! Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/267/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

How can something as simple as streetlights transform a city? What can the Boston Massacre teach us about how dark the streets and alleyways of Boston were in the years before streetlights? How did the town decide to buy English oil lamps for the streets but fuel them with American whale oil? How did Boston’s very first street lamps survive a shipwreck and the Boston Tea Party, and who decided where they would be installed and how they would be maintained? In the era of climate change, what does the future hold for Boston’s quaint remaining gas street lamps? Let’s find out! Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/266/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Frank Hart was a transplant to Boston who became a famous star in a sport that no longer really exists. Hart was a pedestrian, competing in grueling six-day races where the winner was the person who could run, walk, or even crawl the most miles by the time the clock ran out. He made his debut in the Bean Pot Tramp here in Boston, but he followed the money to races in New York, London, San Francisco, and beyond, becoming one of America’s first famous Black athletes. However, Frank Hart’s career declined along with the popularity of pedestrianism, while the rise of Jim Crow raised new hurdles for a Black competitor. Joining us this week to discuss the rise and fall of Frank Hart is Davy Crockett, the host of the Ultrarunning History podcast and author of the new biography Frank Hart: The First Black Ultrarunning Star. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/265/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

How did Boston come to host the first concert ever performed in what’s now the United States? Why was Boston resistant to the idea of a concert until almost 60 years after they became common in our ancestral city of London? When did Puritan Boston relax its rules and customs enough to allow public performances of secular music? Who brought the idea of charging for admission to a musical performance to colonial Boston, and what artistic legacy did he leave behind here? Listen now to find out! Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/264/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Boston witnessed a grim Christmas in 1774, at the height of the British occupation. There had been redcoats in Boston for six years at that point, but after the Tea Party the previous December, the number of occupying troops skyrocketed, until there was nearly one British soldier for every adult male Bostonian. They were there to enforce the intolerable acts, and their presence only fanned the flames of rebellion in the colony. An increased Army presence in Boston always led to an increase in desertions, and December 1774 was no exception. On the 17th, while his unit was away on exercises, Private William Ferguson got really drunk, and then he either tried to desert and start a new life here in America, or he went to see about getting some laundry done. Either way, he was convicted, and Boston was shocked to bear witness to an execution by firing squad in the middle of Boston Common, bright and early on Christmas Eve. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/263/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

For a couple of months now, I’ve been hinting around about a lawsuit that HUB History has been caught up in. We have finally reached a settlement, so I can tell you a little more about what happened and why I’ve been so thirsty recently when I make my Patreon appeals. Speaking of which: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/ or http://HUBhistory.com/support/

For Thanksgiving, we are revisiting three classic episodes of HUB History. First, learn how the carol “Over the River and Through the Wood” started out as a Thanksgiving song, and why the songwriter’s extreme beliefs almost cost her livelihood. Then, hear how 19th century Boston got the vast flocks of turkeys needed for a traditional Thanksgiving to market, and then to the dining room table. And finally, prepare to be surprised when you hear that college students, even Harvard students and even John Adams’ kids, have been known to drink and cause trouble, such as the 1787 Thanksgiving day riot. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/262/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

106 years ago this week, a terrible accident took place within sight of South Station. November 7, 1916 was election day in Boston, but it was an otherwise completely ordinary autumn afternoon for the passengers who packed themselves into streetcar number 393 of the Boston Elevated Railway for their evening commute through South Boston to South Station and Downtown Crossing. The everyday monotony of the trip home was shattered in an instant, when the streetcar crashed through the closed gates of the Summer Street bridge and plunged through the open drawbridge and into the dark and frigid water below. How many could be saved, and how many would have to perish for this evening to be remembered as Boston’s greatest moment of tragedy for a generation? Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/261/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

19th Century Boston was a riotous town, and in past episodes, we've examined everything from anti-draft riots to anti-catholic riots to anti-immigrant riots that took place in this city in the 19th century.  The incident on Washington Street on October 21, 1835 was different, however.  Where most of Boston’s 19th century riots erupted from street violence among and directed by the working classes, the mob’s attack on the Female Anti Slavery Society and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was led by a group characterized as “gentlemen of property and influence.”  Enraged by the audacity of radical calls for immediate abolition, this mob of respectable gentlemen broke down the doors, scattered members of the Female Anti Slavery Society, nearly lynched William Lloyd Garrison, and inspired abolitionist leader Maria Chapman to exclaim, “If this is the last bulwark of freedom, we may as well die here as anywhere!” Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/260/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

When it came steaming into Boston Harbor 81 years ago this week, the fishing trawler Buskø was escorted by a Coast Guard cutter, with armed guards watching over her crew. The next day’s headlines declared that the US had captured a Nazi spy ship manned by Gestapo agents who were setting up secret bases in Greenland, but the truth turned out to be more complicated. The Busko was sailing under the Norwegian flag and manned by a Norwegian crew, yet their peaceful voyage to deliver supplies to isolated Norwegian hunters in the arctic was used to cover up Nazi intelligence gathering, so what would the fate of the ship be? And while war was raging in Europe, the United States was technically at peace, so on what charges were the Norwegian crew held at the East Boston immigration station? Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/259/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Professor Charles R. Gallagher’s recent book The Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front is an in depth accounting of an organization that was wildly popular in Boston and beyond in the years before the US entered World War II. The Christian Front was deeply rooted in Catholic doctrines, but the value at its core was a form of anticommunism that members treated as interchangeable with antisemitism. Professor Gallagher will tell us how the group was founded and how the doctrine of Catholic Action and the Mystical Body of Christ theory enabled their hateful ideology. He’ll also introduce the intellectual leaders of the group, the streetfighters who led it down the primrose path to paramilitarism, and the Nazi spymaster who turned the group toward treason. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/258/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

The West End and the North Slope of Beacon Hill have gone through extreme transformations over time. At the turn of the 20th century, these neighboring communities welcomed Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, though very few signs of those vibrant communities remain today. As the last of the purpose-built immigrant synagogues still standing in downtown Boston, the Vilna Shul is a unique building with a rich history of immigration, community, and the evolving American identity. Vilna Shul Executive Director Dalit Horn joins us this week to talk about the history and future of this unique synagogue. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/257/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

During the summer of 1775, when the siege of Boston was at its peak, about 1500 Pennsylvania Riflemen answered a call for volunteers. By the time they reached the American lines in Cambridge, expectations for these troops were through the roof. Thanks in no small part to a publicity campaign engineered by John Adams, the New England officers commanding the troops around Boston believed that these fresh troops were capable of nearly everything. Their reputation was based in part upon the riflemen’s origins on the frontier, and in part on the advanced weaponry they carried. While they’re the status quo today, rifles were new to both armies that were facing off in Boston and nearly unheard of here in New England. However, fame went to these soldiers’ heads, and after only a couple of months on the front line, they were nearly ungovernable. They refused to take part in the regular duties of an American soldier, they staged jailbreaks when their comrades were locked up for infractions against military discipline, and on September 10th, they staged the first mutiny in the new Continental Army. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/256/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Independent researcher TJ Todd recently gave a presentation about Old North Church and the sea.  TJ’s talk focuses on two notable sea captains, both of whom longtime listeners will remember from past episodes.  Captain Samuel Nicholson was the first, somewhat hapless, captain of the USS Constitution, and Captain Thomas Gruchy was the privateer who captured the carved cherubs that keep watch over the Old North sanctuary from the French.  Exploring the lives of these two famous captains will reveal what life was like for the ordinary sailors and dockworkers who made up a significant portion of Boston’s population in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as drawing connections to other incidents from Boston’s maritime past, including many that we’ve discussed in past episodes. Thanks to our friends at the Old North Foundation for allowing us to share this presentation with you. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/255/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Cy Young Day, an exhibition game to celebrate the greatest pitcher of all time, was bracketed by days of sports celebration, from prizefighters in the squared circle to old time baseball in the Harbor Islands. Held at the Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds on August 13, 1908, the Cy Young celebration drew a record crowd of 20,000 fans to the now long gone ballpark. By this time, Young had been playing professional baseball for 20 years, and he was starting to slow down. Nobody knew if the old Ohio farmboy would be playing for Boston when the 1909 season rolled around, so it seemed as if the whole city turned out to show the pitcher their love, and to make sure he would have a comfortable nest egg for his expected retirement. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/254/ Support the show: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Back in 2015, I was at the Boston Public Library for a special exhibition called “We Are One,” which showcased items from their collection dating from the French and Indian War to the Constitutional Convention, showing how thirteen fractious colonies forged a single national identity. Libraries have a lot more than just books, of course. The BPL has everything from streaming movies and music to historic maps to medieval manuscripts to Leslie Jones’ photos to one remarkable gold medal. Some of the items on display were breathtaking, like a map hand drawn by George Washington, Paul Revere’s hand drawn diagram showing where the bodies fell during the Boston Massacre, and a gorgeous 360 degree panorama showing the view from the top of Beacon Hill during the siege of Boston. What stopped me in my tracks, though, was a solid gold medal. It was about three inches in diameter, but it was hard to tell through the thick and probably bulletproof glass protecting it. On the side facing me, I could see a bust of George Washington and some words, but they were too small to read. A special bracket held the medal in front of a mirror, and on the back I could make out more lettering, as well as a cannon and a group of men on horses. Later, I learned that this was the Washington Before Boston Medal, commemorating the British evacuation of Boston. It was the first Congressional gold medal, and the first medal of any kind commissioned by the Continental Congress during our Revolutionary War. This illustrious medal’s journey to the stacks of the Boston Public Library will take us from Henry Knox’s cannons at Dorchester Heights to John Adams at the Second Continental congress in Philly to Ben Franklin in Paris to a Confederate’s dank basement in West Virginia during the Civil War. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/253/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

By the summer of 1863, the Civil War had dragged on longer than anyone thought at the outset, and leaders on both sides were desperate for more money, arms, manufactured goods, and most of all men. That growing desperation had inspired secretary of war Edwin Stanton to authorize Massachusetts governor John Andrew to start enlisting the nation’s first Black troops a few months before, including the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, whose well deserved fame was refreshed with the movie Glory. The influx of fresh and motivated troops contributed to Union gains throughout the rest of the war, but the so-called colored regiments were not enough. In July of that year, Congress passed a law compelling able bodied men into military service for the first time. Here in Boston, the burden of that draft law fell disproportionately on the working class Irish Americans of South Boston and the North End. And as we’ll see, the Irish had strong resentments based in class, race, religion, and economics that made them suspicious of compulsory service. These tensions boiled over on the evening of July 14th, 1863 as marshals attempted to serve the first draft notices in the crowded and narrow streets of the North End, with the US Army eventually firing artillery and small arms into a crowd of civilian protesters at point blank range. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/252/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In this episode, Seth Bruggeman discusses his recent book Lost on the Freedom Trail: The National Park Service and Urban Renewal in Postwar Boston. In it, he traces the development of the Freedom Trail and our Boston National Historic Park, examining the inevitable tension between driving tourism revenue to Boston and doing good history. He delves into the politics surrounding our local historic sites during the trauma of urban renewal in Boston and the violence of the busing era that followed. He also argues that the Freedom Trail and related sites have been used to defend dominant ideas about whiteness at several different points in Boston’s contested history. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/251/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

For our 250th episode, we're trying something different.  This week, Aaron Minton from the Pilgrim's Digress podcast is turning the tables on your usual host, Jake.  And instead of asking the questions, this time Jake has to answer them. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/250/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/ Aaron hosts Pilgrim's Digress: https://pilgrimsdigress.com/

Eric Jay Dolin joins us this week to discuss his new book Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution. We’ll discuss the role of privateers in the American Revolution, with a special focus on the many privateersmen who sailed out of Boston and New England. Privateers were civilian ships that were outfitted for war by optimistic investors, with volunteer crews who were willing to risk their lives fighting for a share of the profits. From the mouth of Boston Harbor to the very shores of Britain, these private warships sailed in search of rich English merchant vessels, while risking the lives and freedom of their crews. While their role is mostly forgotten today, Eric will explain how privateer crews helped turn the tide of Revolution in favor of the Americans, and we’ll discuss how our modern habit of associating privateering with piracy leads to a distaste for the privateersmen who helped win our independence. Rebels at Sea will be available in bookstores everywhere on May 31, 2022. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/249/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

This episode continues our story of Joshua Slocum and his solo circumnavigation of the globe. We’ll follow Captain Slocum as he builds the little sloop Spray and hatches a plan to make money for his family by sailing alone around the world for the first time.  We’ll follow his astounding path from Boston to the rock of Gibraltar, back to South America, and through the months long ordeal of the Straits of Magellan.  We’ll learn how he sailed thousands of miles across the South pacific to Samoa without ever touching the wheel of the sloop, while his family worried that he had perished at sea.  And we’ll follow him on his pilgrimage to the home of Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson, his adventure in South Africa, and finally across the Atlantic and home, covering about 46,000 miles in three years, two months, and two days. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/248/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Captain Joshua Slocum’s adventure began in Boston, and it took him to nearly every corner of the world, nearly costing him his life on multiple occasions, and probably costing him his marriage. But in the end it earned him a place in history as the first person to circumnavigate the world completely alone, covering about 46,000 miles in three years, two months, and two days, without so much as a dog or a ship’s rat for company. The saga begins long before that legendary 1895 voyage, when the growing and very seafaring Slocum family lived at sea for 13 years, until they were visited by unspeakable tragedy. It follows them as they attempt to pick up the pieces, only to encounter further misfortunes that drove a wedge into the family and drove the Captain out to sea in his handmade sloop on what seemed like an impossible mission: sailing alone around the world. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/247/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Two deadly murders were committed in and around Boston using military grade assault weapons, and both of them happened in the middle of a raging debate around gun control in this country. You might assume I am talking about an incident that happened after the school shootings in Parkland Florida in 2018 or Columbine in 1999, but I’m not. The first crime took place in the sleepy Boston suburb of Needham in 1934, when three gangsters used a stolen Tommy gun to rob the Needham savings bank and murder two policemen. Sadly, this deadly crime took place just months before the 1934 federal firearms act made it illegal for civilians to own machine guns. The second crime we’ll discuss took place a generation later, in 1989, in the middle of a heated national debate that resulted in George HW Bush’s 1989 limited assault weapons ban, and the stronger 1994 ban that was allowed to expire in 2004. In what has to be the only recorded example of someone going postal in the sky, a disgruntled postal worker killed his ex wife, stole a plane, and spent hours shooting up downtown Boston with an AK-47. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/246/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Professor Kelly Kilcrease of UNH Manchester joins us on the podcast this week to discuss his new book, Boston’s Long Wharf: A Path to the Sea. Today, Long Wharf is easily missed along Boston’s waterfront, but that’s because the rest of the city has grown up around what was once considered one of the great wonders of the modern world. From the beginning of the 18th century until the early 20th century, Long Wharf was the grand front entrance to our city, welcoming visitors, sea captains, immigrants, and even enslaved Africans. Dr Kilcrease will tell us why the grand pier was built, how the proprietors funded it, and how it has changed over the past 300 years. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/245/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

This week we’re featuring a magician. And not just any magician, one of the most famous of all time, Harry Houdini. When he wasn’t busy escaping from locked jail cells and underwater safes, the Great Houdini made it a personal mission to unmask fraudulent mediums. In the early 20th century, mediums, spiritualists, and psychic practitioners of all kinds were undergoing a massive boom. With all the death associated with the Great War and the global flu pandemic, the public was desperate for a message from the other side, and there were plenty of practitioners who were willing to sell it to them. The practice of spiritualism was so widespread and accepted that the journal Scientific American was on the brink of giving it the stamp of scientific legitimacy. The leading contender for their approval (and their large cash prize) was a Beacon Hill medium who went by the stage name Margery. And she might have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for that meddling magician, too! Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/244/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

This week, the show gets a visit from four veteran historical interpreters who have joined forces on a new collaborative project called The First Ladies Forum. Together, they portray four of America’s First Ladies, including both interpreters and First Ladies with ties to Boston. We’ll discuss the lives of Dolley Madison (portrayed by Judith Kalaora), Louisa Catherine Adams (portrayed by Laura Rocklyn), Mary Lincoln (portrayed by Laura Keyes), and Jacqueline Kennedy (portrayed by Leslie Goddard) and how the actors choose to embody them. We’ll also talk more broadly about what it’s like to be a costumed historical interpreter and the role of historical interpretation in helping people understand the people and events of America’s past. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/243/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

During a legendary New England blizzard, trains and trolleys ground to a halt in Boston, stranding commuters at South and North Station. Thousands of drivers were forced to abandon their cars in the middle of traffic and just walk away in search of shelter. Dozens of people were killed in the storm. Much as it may sound like the great blizzard of 1978, or even a typical Monday in February 2015, this week’s show is actually about the Valentine’s Day blizzard of 1940 that hit Boston without warning and left chaos in its wake. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/242/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

For about 12 years, the eccentric Ann Winsor Sherwin and her son William made a cozy home on an abandoned four-masted schooner that ran aground off Spectacle Island. Against all odds, she managed to hold off agents of the ship’s owners, the health commission, the Coast Guard, and the Boston Harbor Police. Abandoned by her no-good husband who thought he could make it big in Hollywood, Ann and her three children were destitute and homeless until they set up a home on the schooner, riding out the Great Depression rent-free on Boston Harbor. They were a family out of time, until the world (in the form of the US Army) came calling for young William. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/241/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory

This week, we’re trying something a little bit different. This fall and winter, the Old North Church historic site has been hosting a series of conversations about radical Black abolitionist David Walker, and his book An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. As part of their Digital Speaker Series, education director Catherine Matthews moderated a discussion between artist, educator, and activist L’Merchie Frazier and playwright Peter Snoad on December 15. This edition focused on the text of the Appeal as a piece of rhetoric that pointed out the brutality and hypocrisy of slavery and urged the enslaved to rebel by any means necessary. Thanks to our friends at Old North for allowing us to share this panel with you. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/240/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

The new book Urban Archipelago: An Environmental History of the Boston Harbor Islands explores how the city of Boston has transformed the islands on its doorstep time and time again, as the city’s needs shifted over the centuries. From a valuable site for farming, to a dumping ground for all of Boston’s problems, to a wilderness of history and romance, to an urban park, these many transformations reflect a changing city. Author Dr. Pavla Šimková joins us this week to discuss how Boston initially embraced the islands, later turned its back on the Harbor, and more recently has embraced them both again. You’ll hear us argue about the 1960s plan to hold a bicentennial expo on the harbor and the role of storyteller Edward Rowe Snow in promoting the Harbor Islands to a new generation, and you’ll hear us agree about the beauty and importance of this urban asset. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/239/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

The early years of James Gately, who was better known as the Hermit of Hyde Park, were shrouded in mystery. Gately was an Englishman who came to Boston after his life took a bad turn. He had trouble making money when he got here, got robbed of his last cent, and decided to give up on humanity and disappear into the wilderness forever. For almost thirty years, he scratched out a meager existence living off the land in the woods of Hyde Park, while his legend grew. By the time he died in 1875, he was so well known that treasure hunters beat a path to his door to search (unsuccessfully) for the fortune they believed he had buried in his woods. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/238/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Dr. Per-Olof Hasselgren is a practicing surgeon and author of the recent book Revolutionary Surgeons: Patriots and Loyalists on the Cutting Edge, which is a profile of eleven Revolutionary War surgeons. Dr. Hasselgren joined Jake to discuss the Boston physicians, brothers, and brothers in arms Joseph and John Warren. Joseph is famous for arranging the lantern signal from Old North and dispatching Paul Revere on his famous ride, as well as for his heroic death at Bunker Hill. His little brother John followed him into politics and medicine, and went on to found Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hasselgren brings a unique perspective to the conversation, examining the medical careers of these eminent physicians through a physician’s eyes. The episode explores how 18th century physicians learned their craft, how they earned a living, and how they intermingled medicine and politics, as well as how surgery was changing during the Revolution and the groundbreaking surgery pioneered by John Warren and his son John Collins Warren. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/237/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In the book Combat Zone, Murder, Race, and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, journalist Jan Brogan turns her impressive research and reporting skills on the case of Andy Puopolo, a 21 year old Harvard football player who was killed in a fight in the Combat Zone in 1976.  The case would pit the most privileged group at the most privileged school in the world against three poor Black men on the margins of society, while in the background Boston tore itself apart on racial lines. The book plumbs the depths of white, working class Boston’s racial resentments during the busing era, a criminal justice system that stacked the deck against Black defendants, and a police department that was compromised at its core by organized crime.  It highlights the street violence that helped cement Boston’s reputation as the most racist city in the country, as well as the two trials that came to diametrically opposite verdicts in the same city, just a couple of years apart.  It also puts the reader in the mind of the younger brother of the victim, left behind to deal with his feelings of grief and guilt, while wrestling with the possibility of revenge. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/236/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

This week we’ll explore the strange case of a 1907 shooting in Jamaica Plain. There was a gun, a gunshot, and a gunshot victim… a child, in fact. But there was no shooter, or at least no human shooter. If this was today, we might be talking about a terrifying robot machine gun, but 1907 was a little early for that. Instead, we’re talking about a deadly trap laid by a homeowner to protect his grape arbor. For setting this deadly trap, the homeowner would face criminal trial for assault, but pay only a trivial fine. As bizarre as the case sounds, it was part of a trend that was sweeping the nation at the time, with many spring gun cases arising in the Boston area, until the matter was finally settled in a state supreme court case that every first year law student still studies today. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/235 Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory

This week, Jake interviews Dr. Jared Ross Hardesty, author of the new book Mutiny on the Rising Sun: a tragic tale of smuggling, slavery, and chocolate, which uncovers the dark web of interconnections between Old North Church, chocolate, and chattel slavery. Dr. Hardesty will explain why a reputable sea captain would become a smuggler, trafficking in illegal chocolate and enslaved Africans; the risks an 18th century Bostonian would take to provide himself with a competence, or enough money to allow his family to live independently; and what it meant in that era to be of but not from Boston. At the heart of the story is a brutal murder and mutiny on the high seas, illustrating the fundamental brutality of life in the 18th century, but the role of the church (specifically Old North Church) in the social and economic lives of Bostonians is also central to understanding the life and death of Captain Newark Jackson. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/234/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Come with me on a voyage around the world with the officers and crew of the ship Columbia. Formally named the Columbia Rediviva and accompanied by the sloop Lady Washington, the ship was owned by a group of prominent Bostonians and charged with opening up trade between Boston and China. Almost by accident, the Columbia became the first American ship to visit the west coast of North America, the first American ship to land in the Hawaiian islands, and the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe. Over the course of five years and two expeditions, the crew completed two circumnavigations, brought the first native Hawaiian to visit Boston, and “discovered” the Columbia river (which would have been news to the dozens of villages and thousands of inhabitants on the river). The mighty river of the west had previously been thought to be a myth, and navigating up this river established US land claims in what would eventually become seven states. The Oregon Country was contested between Russia, Spain, and Britain, but the Columbia’s expedition opened it to Boston merchants, and pretty soon all American traders on the west coast were known as the Boston men. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/233/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Arthur Kingsley Porter was a celebrity professor, who worked in the shadow of the Harvard secret court that purged the campus of gay students and faculty. He grew up in wealth and privilege, expecting to follow his brother into the family law firm, before experiencing an epiphany that drove him to become one of the world’s foremost experts on medieval European art and architecture. After a midlife revelation led to an unconventional lifestyle, his family sought refuge at their Irish castle and their offshore cottage, until Porter disappeared under mysterious circumstances in the summer of 1933. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/232/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Since the earliest days of the Bay Colony, prisoners of war have been held on the islands of Boston Harbor. This week, we’re sharing two classic stories of the Harbor Islands POWs from past episodes. One of them is about the Confederate prisoners who arrived at Fort Warren on Georges Island in the fall of 1861, fresh from the field of battle in North Carolina. They’d be joined by Maryland politicians who supported secession, the supposed diplomats Mason and Slidell, and eventually even Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens, who didn’t seem to much appreciate Boston hospitality. 81 years later and a mile away on Peddocks Island, a group of unruly Italian prisoners were confined at Fort Andrews after starting what may have been the only soccer riot in Boston history at a South Boston prison camp. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/231/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Joe Bagley is the archaeologist for the city of Boston, and his new book Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them catalogs 50 of the oldest houses, stores, churches, and even lighthouses that still stand here in the Hub. In this episode, he tells us how it’s still possible to rediscover an unknown house from the 1700s in the North End in 2020, and how a house from the 1790s, the 41st oldest building in Boston, could be demolished in the few short months since the book was published. Along the way, we’ll talk about how he researched the book, the rules he had to write for himself about what “counts” as a historic building, and how similar his life is to Indiana Jones. We’ll also explore how historic buildings can reveal the otherwise untold stories of enslaved Bostonians, women, and even some of the earliest Japanese citizens to visit the United States. Plus, I’m joined by special guest host Nikki this time around! Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/230 Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory

In 1773, an ad appeared in the Boston Gazette for a Black artist who was described as possessing an “extraordinary genius” for painting portraits. From this brief mention, we will explore the life of a gifted visual artist who was enslaved in Boston, his friendship with Phillis Wheatley, the enslaved poet, and the mental gymnastics that were required on the part of white enslavers to justify owning people like property. Through the life of a second gifted painter, we’ll find out how the coming of the American Revolution changed life for some enslaved African Americans in Boston. And through the unanswered questions about the lives of both these men, we’ll examine the limits of what historical sources can tell us about any given enslaved individual. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/229/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

On August 10, 1780, British prisoners of war being held on a ship on Boston Harbor conspired to disarm their guards and escape.  In the end, they were all caught, but an American guard was killed.  This case gives us a fascinating insight into what life was like for POWs in the American Revolution, but there’s very little record of it in historical sources.  If the prosecutor in the murder case hadn’t signed the Declaration of Independence four years earlier, his papers may not have been considered worth saving, and we might have no record of this interesting case at all.  Amazingly, the defense basically argued that all’s fair in love and war, and that since the redcoats had been taken prisoner by force, they had a right to seek freedom by force.  Even more amazingly, it worked! Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/228/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Boston Light, America’s first and oldest light station, still welcomes visitors and locals alike if they approach the city by sea, but that wasn’t always the case. During the first year of the Revolutionary War, there were three attempts to destroy Boston Light during the siege of Boston. First, the newly formed Continental Army burned the strategically important lighthouse twice in July 1775, 246 years ago this week, using the 18th century equivalent of a stealth fighter: the humble whaleboat. Then, as the British finally evacuated Boston in the spring of 1776, the last ships to leave the harbor blew up the lighthouse that June. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/227/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

For almost 20 years, Nike missile batteries formed a suburban ring around Boston that ushered the city into the 1950s and the atomic age. The Ajax missile and its successor, the Hercules, were intended to defend Boston and its many military assets from Soviet bombers flying over the North Pole to rain nuclear destruction on the Hub. The ring of bases stretched from the South Shore to the North Shore and far inland, always ready to fire in 15 minutes or less. The Nike program was an open secret, with base gates sometimes thrown open for the public and reporters alike. But there were more closely guarded secrets, as well. Like the fact that the Ajax missile wasn’t really equipped to engage modern jet bombers. Or the fact that a successful interception by the later Hercules would result in a nuclear detonation in our own backyards, with tens of thousands of Americans killed or injured. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/226/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In the last decade of the 18th century, a group of investors called the Proprietors of the Middlesex Canal turned a crazy idea into reality. After some initial stumbles, they were able to successfully build a navigational canal from Boston Harbor to the Merrimack River in Lowell. In an era before highways and airports, it became the first practical freight link between the markets and wharves of Boston and the vast interior of New England in Central Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Against all odds, it was a success, and an unparalleled feat of engineering. However, its perceived success was short lived, with the coming of the railroad spelling doom for the canal business and commercial failure for the Proprietors. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/225/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

On June 10, 1768 a riot swept through Boston that forced Royal officials to flee for their lives, saw a boat bodily carried onto the Common and burned, and in the end helped bring on the Boston Massacre less than two years later. John Hancock, later a prominent patriot and owner of America’s most famous signature, was at the center of the controversy. Known then as a leading merchant and possibly the richest man in the British colonies, Hancock would find himself on trial as a smuggler before a court that was originally set up to deal with pirates and defended by none other than future President John Adams. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/224/ Support the show: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

When Starr Faithfull’s body washed up on a Long Island beach 90 years ago, the case became a national obsession. At the center of the story was a beautiful young flapper, with a diary full of covert sexual conquests, a sordid history with a prominent politician, and a drug and booze fueled nightlife in the speakeasies of two major cities. Was her death a suicide, driven by her dark past? A tragic accident after one too many? Or was it something darker, a murder for hire on behalf of a former Boston mayor… or his underworld adversaries? Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/223/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

At the outbreak of World War II, president Roosevelt decided to create a single centralized agency to organize the nation’s many competing intelligence services. Not the CIA, which would come a few years later, but the Office of Strategic Services. Before the CIA, the OSS was America’s chief spy service. And before Julia Child was a famous chef on PBS, young Julia McWilliams was recruited by the OSS, where she traveled the world and fell in love with Paul Child and exotic food. Listen to this week’s episode to learn about Julia Child at war: how she was recruited and trained, where she served in the Asian theater of war, and why that experience helped lead her to a Cambridge house with its now famous kitchen. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/222/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory

On May Day in 1919, Roxbury socialists marched in support of a textile workers' strike in Lawrence.  The afternoon turned violent, with police firing shots to disperse the crowd.  In the aftermath, two officers were killed and a mob formed that hunted down and viciously beat many of the marchers.  As the smoke cleared, it became evident that one of the leaders of the march was a celebrity: William James Sidis, the boy wonder. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/221 Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory

In the 1820s, waves of Christian missionaries were dispatched from Boston, believing they might never return. They didn’t know much about the land they were going to settle in or the people they were trying to convert, but what little they had heard was frightening. The missionaries came from a church that was directly descended from the harsh Christianity of the Puritans, and they were on their way to a land where the people worshipped a pantheon of many gods. From a society where both men and women were basically always covered from neck to ankles, they were going to a land where the people wore tattoos and very little else. They had heard rumors of graven idols and human sacrifice, and believed they were on their way to do battle with the devil himself. Many of them believed that they were being sent into the gates of hell, but they were on their way to heaven on earth itself… the Kingdom of Hawaii. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/220/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

During the Kennedy administration, a group of Boston businessmen led by a millionaire dairy farmer hatched an audacious plan. They proposed building an experimental city of the future on made land, piers, and floating platforms connecting Columbia Point in Dorchester with Thompson Island in Boston Harbor. This new city would be the site of a World’s Fair timed to celebrate America’s Bicentennial, and the site would then be reused to solve all of Boston’s problems with housing, race relations, environmental damage, and economic decline. Spoiler alert: We don’t have a futuristic city connecting Columbia Point with the Harbor Islands. But the story of how a plan ripped straight out of science fiction almost came to be built in Boston reveals a lot about an optimistic city torn apart by the busing crisis.

March 14 is the anniversary of one of the worst railroad accidents that ever happened in Massachusetts. On March 14, 1887, a train filled with suburban commuters was on its way from Dedham to Park Square station in Boston, stopping in West Roxbury and Roslindale along the way. Moments before it would have passed through Forest Hills, disaster struck. By the time the engineer turned around, he saw a cloud of dust and a pile of twisted rubble where nine passenger cars should have been. In a split second, a normal morning commute was transformed into a nightmare of death and dismemberment for hundreds of passengers. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/218 Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory

Professor Richard T Greener grew up in Boston in the shadow of the abolition movement, graduated from Harvard, and became one of the foremost Black intellectuals of his era. However, soon after publishing his most influential work, when it seemed like he would take up the mantle of Frederick Douglass, he instead sank into obscurity. He was nearly forgotten for over a century, until his legacy was rediscovered in 2009 in a discarded steamer trunk in a dusty attic on the South Side of Chicago. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/217 Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory

A little more than three years ago, cohost emerita Nikki and I were on our way to see the Hamilton musical for the first time. In our excitement, we decided to record an episode about an 1806 political duel in Boston that had a lot of parallels with the Hamilton-Burr duel. We dug into the history of dueling in Boston, how dueling laws evolved in response to the duels that were fought here, and why a young Boston Democratic-Republican and a young Boston Federalist decided they had to fight each other to the death in Rhode Island. Unfortunately, we also peppered samples from the Hamilton soundtrack throughout the episode in our excitement, stomping all over Lin Manuel’s intellectual property. The unlicensed music even got the episode pulled from at least one podcast app. This week, I went back to our original recording and re-edited it to clean it up and remove all the Hamiltunes. So get ready to meet Charles Sumner’s dad and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s dad, sail on the USS Constitution, and Alexander Hamilton himself will even put in a brief appearance. Plus, we’ll learn why fighting a duel in Massachusetts could get you buried at a crossroads with a stake driven through your heart. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/216/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

They stockpiled guns and ammunition. They built homemade bombs. They had a hit list of a dozen members of Congress who were targeted for assassination. They believed themselves to be patriots, with soldiers and police officers among their ranks. They rallied under the motto of America First, but they planned to overthrow our Constitutional government and install a fascist dictatorship. Believe it or not, I’m not talking about the insurrection on January 6, 2021, but instead a plot that the FBI uncovered in January 1940. The subsequent investigation threw a spotlight on a group called the Christian Front that made its headquarters at Boston’s Copley Plaza hotel, promoting violent attacks on Jewish Bostonians while accepting covert funding and support from a Nazi spymaster who flew the swastika proudly from his home on Beacon Hill. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/215/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

The first commercially viable telephone network was created by a Boston inventor and entrepreneur. Not Alexander Graham Bell, who is credited with inventing the telephone, but Edwin Thomas Holmes. Starting in the 1850s, his father Edwin Holmes created the first burglar alarm company here in Boston, then Edwin Thomas Holmes adapted the alarm company’s network of telegraph wires in the 1870s to work with the telephone switchboard he invented. Working with Alexander Graham Bell, the Holmes company turned his invention into a business and helped him build the Bell Telephone Company. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/214/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In November 1718, a tragedy on Boston Harbor cut short the lives of six people, including the first keeper of Boston Light and four members of his household. To find out what happened that morning, we’re going to look at what Boston Harbor was like before the construction of Boston Light, why Boston Harbor needed a lighthouse, how it got built, and who was chosen as the first keeper. We’ll also look at the founding father who was moved to poetry by the tragedy, as well as the centuries long search for Ben Franklin’s lost verses and a 20th century hoax that got repeated as truth. Then we’ll close out the show with a quick look at the present and future of Boston Light on Little Brewster Island. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/213 Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory

The Puritan dissenters who founded the town of Boston are remembered as a deeply religious society, so you might think that Christmas in Puritan Boston would be a big deal. You’d be wrong though. Celebrating Christmas was against the law for decades, and it was against cultural norms for a century or more. What were the Puritans’ theological misgivings about Christmas? What were the practices of misrule, mummery, and wassailing with which Christmas was celebrated in the 17th century? And why did the Puritans literally erase Christmas from their calendars? Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/212 Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory

Ice seems like such a simple thing today, when I can just go to my freezer and grab a few cubes to cool down my drink. But before artificial refrigeration, New Englanders would cut and store ice during the long winter to keep their food fresh and their drinks cold during the summer. That was all well and good for people who lived near an ice pond anyway, but what about people in the faraway tropics who might want to get their hands on some ice? Until the early 1800s, the idea of shipping ice to the tropics was seen as a crazy pipe dream, but then along came Frederic Tudor, the Boston entrepreneur who built a fortune and a global reputation as the Ice King! Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/211/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

The show this week is all about Wonderland, the early 20th century amusement park at Revere Beach. Dr. Stephen Wilk has deeply researched the investors and entrepreneurs who bought 27 acres of land along Revere Beach Boulevard and opened the park; the inventors behind rides like Shoot the Chutes, Hell’s Gate, and Love’s Journey; and the people who ran attractions like a firefighting demonstration, a wild west show, and a model Japanese village. His new book Lost Wonderland: The brief and brilliant life of Boston’s million dollar amusement park reveals all of that, as well as changes in the broader economy that doomed Wonderland nearly from the beginning. After opening in 1906, the park went through periods of success and bankruptcy in a meteoric run that lasted just four short years, while leaving a major cultural impression on the Boston area, and Revere in particular. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/210/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

From our viewpoint in modern Massachusetts, with stringent gun licensing and background check laws, it’s hard to imagine how a young man with an extensive criminal record who had been involuntarily committed to multiple mental health institutions could walk into a store and walk back out with a shiny new handgun.  And from a post-9/11 point of view, with security at the forefront of every public space, it’s hard to imagine how an uninvited visitor could walk right into the governor’s State House office and open fire.  But on December 5, 1907, that's exactly what happened, when a disturbed man with a gun and a grudge decided to pay a visit to our seat of government. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/209/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

In honor of Halloween, I’m going to be sharing eight of my favorite Boston ghost stories this week. From haunted houses and inexplicable premonitions recorded by Cotton and Increase Mather in the years leading up to the Salem Witch hysteria, to Nathaniel Hawthorne encountering his friend in the reading room at the Athenaeum for weeks after the friend’s death, to the apparition that only seems to appear in Boston’s most venerable gay bar when only one person is there to see it, we’ll cover nearly four hundred years of paranormal claims. And if you’re wondering why parts of the recording aren’t up to our usual standards, it’s because I was recording this after midnight, and I fell asleep in the middle of recording multiple times. Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/208/ Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/