Author: jake

Whale Watching on Washington Street (episode 185)

In the 1860s, Bostonians could pay 20 cents and watch a captive whale swim in a custom built aquarium on Washington Street in Boston’s Downtown Crossing.  Today, there’s no sea world near Boston, and our New England Aquarium doesn’t hold any whales or dolphins.  Perhaps that’s for the best, as we now realize how intelligent these giants of the sea are.  However, things were different 160 years ago, when an entrepreneurial inventor did the impossible, bringing a beluga whale alive from the arctic ocean to Boston and keeping it alive here for at least 18 months, before being betrayed by the greatest showman, PT Barnum himself.


Continue reading Whale Watching on Washington Street (episode 185)

Henry Knox’s Noble Train, with William Hazelgrove (episode 184)

Henry Knox commanded the Continental Army’s artillery, founded the academy that became West Point, and went on to become the first Secretary of War for the new United States.  Before any of that, though, he was a young man in Boston.  He was a Whig sympathizer who was in love with the daughter of a Tory, and he owned a bookstore frequented by both sides.  Young Henry Knox was catapulted to prominence after one nearly unbelievable feat: bringing 60 tons of heavy artillery 300 miles through the New England wilderness in the dead of winter, from Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York to Cambridge.  William Hazelgrove joins us on the show this week to describe how Knox accomplished this nearly impossible task.  He’ll also tell us about his new book Henry Knox’s Noble Train: The Story of a Boston Bookseller’s Heroic Expedition That Saved the American Revolution, which comes out this week.


Continue reading Henry Knox’s Noble Train, with William Hazelgrove (episode 184)

Boston History Happy Hour

Co-host Nikki and I are hosting a virtual Boston history happy hour and trivia night.  Nikki is writing up some trivia questions, so we can have virtual bar trivia at our virtual bar night.  On Friday, May 15, we’re bringing the nerdiest bar in town to you, from 5:30 to 7pm.  So warm up your webcam, crack open a cold one, and come hang out with us!

Just submit your email address below, and we’ll send out a link to our Zoom meeting.

Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, with Kerri Greenidge (episode183)

From his Harvard graduation in 1895 to his death in 1934, William Monroe Trotter was one of the most influential and uncompromising advocates for the rights of Black Americans.  He was a leader who had the vision to co-found groups like the Niagara Movement and the NAACP, but he also had an ego that prevented him from working effectively within the movements he started.  He was a critic of Booker T Washington, and an early ally of Marcus Garvey.  Monroe Trotter was the publisher of the influential Black newspaper the Boston Guardian, and he is the subject of a new biography by Tufts Professor Kerri Greenidge called Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter.   


Continue reading Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, with Kerri Greenidge (episode183)

Unequal Justice in Boston (episode 182)

This week we’re revisiting two classic episodes to highlight injustice in how the death penalty has been applied in our city’s history.  First, we’re going to visit early Boston, in a time when execution by hanging was a shockingly common sentence for everything from murder and piracy to witchcraft and Quakerdom.  During this period, hanging was the usual, and execution by fire was decidedly unusual.  This punishment was reserved only for members of one race and one sex, and in Boston’s history, only two enslaved African American women were burned at the stake.  After that, we’ll fast forward to the mid-19th century, when it seemed like the death penalty would soon be abolished.  After 13 years without an execution in Boston, a black sailor was convicted of first degree murder.  Despite the fact that white men convicted in similar circumstances were sentenced to life in prison, he was condemned to death.  And despite tens of thousands of signatures on petitions for clemency, he was hanged at Leverett Street Jail in May of 1849.


Continue reading Unequal Justice in Boston (episode 182)

The Bloody Flux of 1775, with Judy Cataldo (episode 181)

In the late summer of 1775, a terrible epidemic struck Boston, and much of New England.  As the Revolutionary War heated up, and the siege of Boston reached its peak, both armies faced an invisible enemy.  Judy Cataldo will join us on the show this week to explain the disease that was known at the time as the bloody flux.  Today, we might know it better by the name dysentery or shigella.  The bloody flux was a diarrheal disease that took a terrible toll on the region’s children, but now it’s barely remembered, as it’s overshadowed by a smallpox outbreak of the same year.


Continue reading The Bloody Flux of 1775, with Judy Cataldo (episode 181)

Ghosts and Shadows of Automobile Row, with Ken Liss (episode 180)

In the early 20th century, car dealerships, tire companies, parts distributors, and other related businesses lined a section of Commonwealth Avenue in Allston that was known as Automobile Row, a sort of urban forefather of the suburban Auto Mile today.  Local historian Ken Liss joins the show to tell us what made these early dealerships special, who some of the personalities behind Automobile Row were, and where you can see traces of this history today. 


Continue reading Ghosts and Shadows of Automobile Row, with Ken Liss (episode 180)

Dr. Thomas Young, the Forgotten Revolutionary, with Scott Nadler (episode 179)

Doctor Thomas Young was a native of New York’s Hudson Valley who seemed to be present at all of Boston’s revolutionary events, from the creation of the committee of correspondence, to the Boston Massacre, to the Tea Party.  He had been an early and influential friend of Ethan Allen, and he was a critic of established religious practice at the time. Though he died early in the Revolutionary War, he was instrumental to the revolutionary movements in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.  Strategy consultant and independent researcher Scott Nadler will explain who Thomas Young was and why he is a forgotten revolutionary today.


Continue reading Dr. Thomas Young, the Forgotten Revolutionary, with Scott Nadler (episode 179)

Puritan Countermagic Revisited (episode 178)

Built in 1637, the Fairbanks House in Dedham is the oldest building in Massachusetts and the oldest wood-framed building in North America. It was occupied by the members of the Fairbanks family for nearly 300 years. In this interview from August 2018, Fairbanks House curator Dan Neff shares evidence he’s uncovered showing that generations of residents, perhaps spanning hundreds of years, used charms and hex marks in an attempt to ward off evil forces that might have included witches, demons, and even disease. That doesn’t mean that the family was irreligious, because belief in magic could actually be reinforced by 17th century Puritan beliefs, which said that the devil was a literal presence in the world that was trying to harm them physically and spiritually, by afflicting them with disease or diverting them from righteousness.  


Continue reading Puritan Countermagic Revisited (episode 178)

The Deleterious Effects of Marsh Miasmata (episode 177)

Instead of profiling a historic Bostonian or bringing you a dramatic story, let’s read a letter together. This brief letter gives an account of a strange, frightening, and funny occurrence on Boston’s Long Wharf in the summer of 1797. Along with one delightfully funny incident, the letter includes details about Boston’s infrastructure and commercial port at the turn of the 19th century. Don’t worry, we’ll flesh out the letter with context from other sources, as well.


Continue reading The Deleterious Effects of Marsh Miasmata (episode 177)