Entities

Works and folklore

Created things — books, maps, songs, statutes, and tales.

48 records

• A Ballad of the French Fleet — OCTOBER, 1746. Me, Thoieas Pbisce {loquitur). A FLEET with fla^ arrayed Sailed from the port of Brest, And the Admiral's ship displayed The signal, '■ Steer southwest." For this Admiral d'Anville Had sworn by cross and crown To ravage with fire and steel Our helpless Boston…
• A Ride for a Bride — When the story of bloodshed at Bunker Hill reached Bohemia Hall, in Cecil County, Maryland, Albert De Courcy left his brother Ernest to support the dignity of the house and make patriotic speeches, while he went to the front, conscious that Helen Carmichael, his affianced wife,…
• Agnes Surriage — When, in 1742, Sir Henry Frankland, collector of the port of Boston, went to Marblehead to inquire into the smuggling that was pretty boldly carried on, he put up at the Fountain Inn. As he entered that hostelry a barefooted girl, of sixteen, who was scrubbing the floor, looked…
• Agnes, the Maid of the Inn — THIS pretty story, a romance of real life, makes us ac- quainted with two noble, but impulsive natures, whose destinies first became interwoven in a way quite the reverse of the romantic. After perusing it, as one is pretty sure to do, from beginning to end, one is very apt to…
• An Escape from Pirates — ACCORDING to the historian Thncydides, the Greeks were the first pirates. The ancient poets tell us that those who sailed along the coasts in quest of prey were everywhere accosted with the question, " wliether they were pirates," not as a term of reproach, but of honor. So…
• Anthony's Nose — The Hudson Highlands are suggestively named Bear Mountain, Sugar Loaf, Cro' Nest, Storm King, called by the Dutch Boterberg, or Butter Hill, from its likeness to a pat of butter; Beacon Hill, where the fires blazed to tell the country that the Revolutionary war was over;…
• Berkshire Tories — The tories of Berkshire, Massachusetts, were men who had been endeared to the king by holding office under warrant from that sacred personage. They have been gently dealt with by historians, but that is “overstrained magnanimity which concentrates its charities and praises for…
• Due d'Anville's Descent — 1746. "TTAVING regard, possibly, to the maxim that a dauger J — L escaped is a danger no longer, the historians have in general treated the descent of Admiral d'Anville with easy- indifference. Yet the startling fact remains that so long as his fleet rode the seas in safety,…
• Edward Randolph's Portrait — Nothing is left of Province House, the old home of the royal governors, in Boston, but the gilded Indian that served as its weathercock and aimed his arrow at the winds from the cupola. The house itself was swept away long ago in the so-called march of improvement. In one of…
• Endicott and the Red Cross — CUTTINa OUT THE CROSS. aroused the spirit of resistance in full vigor. The work of erect- ing fortifications was hastened. A solemn consultation between the magistrates and the ministers resulted in the determination to defend themselves against these innovations by force if…
• Hanging by Proxy — IN" his " New English Canaan," first published at London in 1632, Thomas Morton, the dispossessed and exiled planter of Mount Wollaston, alias Merry Mount, relates the droll doings " Of a Parliament held at Wessaguscus." Wessaguscus is now Weymouth, Mass. It was first settled…
• Howe's Masquerade — During the siege of Boston Sir William Howe undertook to show his contempt for the raw fellows who were disrespectfully tossing cannon-balls at him from the batteries in Cambridge and South Boston, by giving a masquerade. It was a brilliant affair, the belles and blades of the…
• Kidd's Treasure — Captain Kidd is the most ubiquitous gentleman in history. If his earnings in the gentle craft of piracy were frugally husbanded, he has possibly left some pots of money in holes in the ground between Key West and Halifax. The belief that large deposits of gold were made at…
• Lady Eleanore's Mantle — Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe, being orphaned, was admitted to the family of her distant relative, Governor Shute, of Massachusetts Bay, and came to America to take her home with him. She arrived at the gates of Province House, in Boston, in the governor's splendid coach, with…
• Love and Rum — Back in the seventeenth century a number of Yankee traders arrived in Naugatuck to barter blankets, beads, buttons, Bibles, and brandy for skins, and there they met chief Toby and his daughter. Toby was not a pleasing person, but his daughter was well favored, and one of the…
• Mistress Anne Hutchinson — 1634. THE biographies of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson have, so to speak, been written by her enemies. Modern authors, in writing of her, have rehearsed her story from the point of view of the seventeenth century, and we live in the nineteenth. But History accepts no verdict that is not…
• Moll Pitcher — IN passing from the boundaries of Saugus into those of Lynn, a word or two acquaints us with the origin of both places. Thomas Dudley, Deputy-Governor of " the Massachusetts," writing in 1630 to the " Lady Bryget, Countesse of Lincoln," says of the Colonists who, like himself,…
• Moodus Noises — The village of Moodus, Connecticut, was troubled with noises. There is no question as to that. In fact, Machimoodus, the Indian name of the spot, means Place of Noises. As early as 1700, and for thirty years after, there were crackings and rumblings that were variously compared…
• Nahant — EuDE rock- bound coast, where erst the Indian roamed, The iron shoulders of thy furrowed clilfs, Made black with smiting, still in stubborn force Resist the scourging wave. Bright summer suns In all the fervor of their noontide heat Obtain no power to harm thee, for thou…
• Nix's Mate — The black, pyramidal beacon, called Nix's Mate, is well known to yachtsmen, sailors, and excursionists in Boston harbor. It rises above a shoal,--all that is left of a fair, green island which long ago disappeared in the sea. In 1636 it had an extent of twelve acres, and on its…
• Old Esther Dudley — Boston had surrendered. Washington was advancing from the heights where he had trained his guns on the British works, and Sir William Howe lingered at the door of Province House,--last of the royal governors who would stand there,--and cursed and waved his hands and beat his…
• Origin of a Name — The origin of many curious geographical names has become an object of mere surmise, and this is the more the pity because they suggest such picturesque possibilities. We would like to know, for instance, how Burnt Coat and Smutty Nose came by such titles. The conglomerate that…
• Other Buried Wealth — The wealth of the Astors hardly exceeds the treasure that is supposed to be secreted here and there about the country, and thousands of dollars have been expended in dredging rivers and shallow seas, and in blasting caves and cellars. Certain promoters of these schemes have…
• Paul Revere's Ride — Green Dragon Tavern in Union Street. They were directed how to act for the interests of the common cause by Adams, Hancock, Warren, and one or two others of the acknowledged leaders. Between Warren and Eevere there grew up a sym- pathy so especially close and intimate, that…
• Peter Rugg, the Missing Man — The idea of long wandering as a penalty, symbolized in “The Wandering Jew,” “The Flying Dutchman,” and the character of Kundry, in “Parsifal,” has application in the legend of Peter Rugg. This strange man, who lived in Middle Street, Boston, with his wife and daughter, was…
• Sale of the Southwicks — Bitter were the persecutions endured by Quakers at the hands of the Puritans. They were flogged if they were restless in church, and flogged if they did not go to it. Their ears were slit and they were set in the stocks if they preached, and if any tender-hearted person gave…
• Salem and other Witchcraft — The extraordinary delusion recorded as Salem witchcraft was but a reflection of a kindred insanity in the Old World that was not extirpated until its victims had been counted by thousands. That human beings should be accused of leaguing themselves with Satan to plague their…
• Satan and his Burial-Place — Satan appears to have troubled the early settlers in America almost as grievously as he did the German students. He came in many shapes to many people, and sometimes he met his match. Did he not try to stop old Peter Stuyvesant from rowing through Hell Gate one moonlight night,…
• Swampscott Beach — SWAMPSCOTT is a succession of hard sand-beaches and rocky, picturesque headlands, forming with Nahant, Nahaut Bay. It was formerly, as we remember, a part of Lynn ; and so closely are they united to-day, that it would require a surveyor to tell where the one ends or the otlier…
• The Bell Tavern Mystery — THE Bell Tavern was a house for the entertainment of man and beast situated in the town of Danvers, fronting the highroad running through the village, and thus connecting its movement and its events with the rest of the world. So loug ago as it was the King's own highway, this…
• The Death of Rainsborough — 1648. THE civil wars in England preceding the dethronement and death of Charles I. opened an alluring field for reaping individual renown which many adventurous New Englanders hastened to enter. It was there in New England, if anywhere, that the revolt against the crushing…
• The Death of Umatilla — Umatilla, chief of the Indians at the Cascades of the Columbia, was one of the few red men of his time who favored peace with the white settlers and lent no countenance to the fierce revels of the “potlatch.” In these “feasts of gifts” the savages, believing themselves to be…
• The Devil and Tom Walker — When Charles River was lined with groves and marshes there lived in a cabin, near Brighton, Massachusetts, an ill-fed rascal named Tom Walker. There was but one in the commonwealth who was more penurious, and that was his wife. They squabbled over the spending of a penny and…
• The Eliot Oak — IN that part of Boston formerly constituting the town of Brighton, and still farther back forming a precinct of Cam- bridge, there is a pleasant locality called Oak Square. It was so named on account of the old oak-tree which stood there, and which is probably better known as…
• The Gray Champion — It befell Sir Edmund Andros to make himself the most hated of the governors sent to represent the king in New England. A spirit of independence, born of a free soil, was already moving in the people's hearts, and the harsh edicts of this officer, as well as the oppressive…
• The Hobomak — Such was the Indian name of the site of Westboro, Massachusetts, and the neighboring pond was Hochomocko. The camp of the red men near the shore was full of bustle one day, for their belle, Iano, was to marry the young chief, Sassacus. The feast was spread and all were ready to…
• The King's Missive — 1661. " Charles R. " Trusty and Wellbelpved, we greet you well. Having been informed that several of our Subjects among you, called Quakers, have been and are imprisoned by you, whereof some have been exe- cuted, and others (as hath been represented unto us) are in Danger to…
• The Lamb of Sacrifice — The Revolution was beginning, homes were empty, farms were deserted, industries were checked, and the levies of a foreign army had consumed the stores of the people. A messenger rode into the Connecticut Valley with tidings of the distress that was in the coast towns, and…
• The Last Shot at Germantown — Many are the tales of prophecy that have been preserved to us from war times. In the beginning of King Philip's war in Connecticut, in 1675, it was reported that the firing of the first gun was heard all over the State, while the drumbeats calling settlers to defence were…
• The Last of the Highwaymen — MICHAEL MARTIN, alias Captain Lightfoot, after a checkered career in Ireland, liis native country, and in Scotland, as a highway robber, became in 1819 a fugitive to America. He first landed at Salem, where he obtained employ- ment as a farm-laborer. But a life of honest toil…
• The May-Pole of Merrymount — The people of Merrymount--unsanctified in the eyes of their Puritan neighbors, for were they not Episcopals, who had pancakes at Shrovetide and wassail at Christmas?--were dancing about their May-pole one summer evening, for they tried to make it May throughout the year. Some…
• The Monster Mosquito — They have some pretty big mosquitoes in New Jersey and on Long Island, but, if report of their ancestry is true, they have degenerated in size and voracity; for the grandfather of all mosquitoes used to live in the neighborhood of Fort Onondaga, New York, and sallying out…
• The Old Mill at Somerville — The “old powder-house,” as the round stone tower is called that stands on a gravel ridge in Somerville, Massachusetts, is so named because at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War it was used temporarily as a magazine; but long before that it was a wind-mill. Here in the old…
• The Place of Noises — Around the endangered prince who fled The scaffold where his father bled, I hid it, sale from storm and blast, Until the days of dread were past ; And then my iaithful l)reast restored The treasure to its riglitful lord. For this do pilgrims seek my side, And artists sketch my…
• The Quaker Prophetess — 1677. THE Old South Church in Boston — not the present build- ing, but the one first erected upon the same spot — was the scene of an event without a parallel in the annals of our Puritan churches, in some of which, nevertheless, remarkable scenes had occurred. To the simple…
• The Salem Alchemist — In 1720 there lived in a turreted house at North and Essex Streets, in Salem, a silent, dark-visaged man,--a reputed chemist. He gathered simples in the fields, and parcels and bottles came and went between him and learned doctors in Boston; but report went around that it was…
• The Snoring of Swunksus — The original proprietor of Deer Isle, off the coast of Maine--at least, the one who was in possession one hundred and thirty years ago--had the liquid name of Swunksus. His name was not the only liquid thing in the neighborhood, however, for, wherever Swunksus was, fire-water…
• Thomas Macy, the Exile — THE archives of Massachusetts once more furnish the inci- dent concerning which, as in the " King's Missive," a letter — a mere scrap — has sufficed for the poet to construct his legend. Thomas Macy, yeoman, of Salisbury, in the county of Essex, is the subject of Whittier's…