They Burnt Tolerable Well: In Search of Boston’s First Street Lamps (episode 266)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to hub history where we go far beyond the freedom trail. To share our favorite stories from the history of boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 266 in search of boston’s first street lamps.
Hi, I’m jake this week. I’m talking about the first streetlights in boston.
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 of boston 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’d be installed and how they’d be maintained and the era of climate change.
What does the future hold for boston’s quaint remaining gas street lamps stay tuned for all those answers and more.
But before we talk about boston’s first street lights, I just want to pause and thank everyone who supports the show on patreon like you.
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[1:15] I’ve been on a big kick lately of listening to local history podcasts, whether that’s East Bay yesterday or the Bowery boys or the charleston time machine.
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and now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

[2:39] I’ve always had a soft spot for the old timey gas street lamps that are found in a handful of historic boston neighborhoods.
I’m not talking about the old fashioned street lights that you might see on the paths through boston common or around the Charlestown Navy yard.
The ones with the round frosted glass globe atop of metal pole are electric lights that were manufactured to look like old gas lamps.
The ones I’m talking about are entirely angular, with no curved glass at all.
They have a metal pole that tends to be smaller in diameter and simpler in design than the ones supporting those electric lights or sometimes a metal elbow attached to a building.

[3:19] At the top, a metal armature angles up to support the lamp, which is set in a square metal base,
on each side of the square trapezoidal glass panes reach up and out, and then four more trapezoidal panes, angle up and back in, making the square fixture flared out in the middle and transparent on all four sides.
So to recap. If you see a round base with a round frosted glass globe, that’s an electric lay.
If you see a square base with transparent angular glass panels, that’s a gas lamp, at least for now.
The dead giveaway, however, is that you can clearly see the fabric mantles inside the clear housing burning brightly with a warm white gas flame.
I love how on the streets that use gas lamps,
even the red lamps marking fire call boxes or gas look out for them the next time you’re walking around City Square in Charlestown marlborough street in the back Bay, a few blocks around Bay Village or of course Beacon Hill.

[4:23] Even though there are really just a handful of streets using gas lamps, they’re such a clear symbol of historic boston.
The back when co host Nikki and I operated a walking tour company, we used the profile of one of these lamps in our company logo despite being an iconic symbol. However, they’re not boston’s original street lamps.
The first gas lamps were installed in Boston in 1828 and the city wasn’t fully converted to gas lighting until the 1880s.
Gas lamps are not the beginning of boston’s history with street lights. However, to find the first boston street lights, we have to go back to the series of crises that led up to the american revolution.

[5:06] I was inspired to look into the earliest boston streetlights by a talk about the boston massacre In March of 2022.
KT Turner Getty gave a talk around the massacre anniversary about the women who bore witness to the bloody massacre in King Street.
Her description of the physical surroundings of the confrontation were very evocative and one of the things she focused on was the darkness of the night.
My mental image of the boston massacre is shaped by two things, the paul revere engraving of the event and the annual reenactment held each March,
in both cases, the participants are well lit by modern street lights, in the case of the reenactment and by reveres imagination in the case of the engraving.
In reality, however, the massacre occurred on a cold winter’s night that would have been nearly as dark as a night camping in the White Mountains.

[6:04] With no street lights, the century and the rowdy crowd surrounding him would have been lit only by the moon, the stars, and perhaps by a bit of lamplight spilling out from under someone’s door between their shutters.
Getty pointed us to a late 19th century print of the massacre by walter Gilman page, which portrays the events unfolding in an,
inky darkness, with the old state house barely silhouetted in the moonlight in the faces of the colonists, illuminated only by the first muzzle flashes, the redcoats fire into the crowd.
I’ll include that image in the show notes, and I think it’ll change how you picture the massacre.

[6:41] That isn’t to say that there were no attempts to shed a little light on the streets of boston before that time.
In an essay about lanterns in early America, published in the 1904 edition of the Connecticut magazine, see a Quincy Norton describes the scattershot approach to lighting the city streets in Boston’s early years.
The streets of ancient Boston were not regularly lighted until 1774, although for a number of years before the state, there were many private lanterns either over the front doors of the larger houses or near the gates opening onto the main streets.
A few of the more pretentious stores also maintained lanterns in front of their doors.
During the winter months, There was as early as 1695, several large iron crescents or fire baskets on the corners of some of the most frequented streets.
These were kept supplied with pine knots by the night watchman, and by their flickering smoky light assisted this official in the discharge of his duties.
The first organized approach to street lighting for boston is tied to another of the crises that helped precipitate a revolution,
in the weeks leading up to the event that we remember as the boston tea Party on december 16th 17 73 boston nervously awaited four T ships.

[8:02] The Dartmouth arrived first on November 28, followed by the Eleanor. On December two.
The Beaver arrived in the outer harbor on December seven, but there had been a case of smallpox on board during the journey, so she was ordered to anchor at Rainsford Island for a week until the sickness was gone.
The beavers moved from the outer harbor to Griffin’s Wharf on December 15 was the immediate trigger for the destruction of the three cargoes of tea. The next night.
The 4th T ship, known as the William. Never arrived in Boston.
Five nights earlier, she had encountered a strong gale, gotten blown off course, and drifted dangerously close to the cape on shore.
On the night of December 10, Captain Joseph Loring, fought the wind and waves for hours, nearly sinking within sight of the twin lights on Thatcher Island.
Then he beat for open water with the hope of trying again another day he followed the wind southeast, trying to break out of the tight confines of massachusetts Bay for the relative safety of the open atlantic.

[9:07] He was unsuccessful, 1774.
Author Mary Beth Norton described the resulting wreck in a 2016 paper, Almost exactly 24 hours after the near disaster at Cape Anne, the William once again encountered waves breaking on a Lee shore.
This time Lauren could not sail the vessel away from the coast, so he ordered the anchors to be let out.
She rode to her anchor is about half an hour, the sea running very high and wind blowing more violent onshore.
He recalled that William then drifted onto a sandbar, where the anchors held the ship for several more hours.
Around nine o’clock on the morning of december 11th the tide peaked, the storm continued, and the surf began to break over the vessel.
By then the hold was awash with four ft of water, and the ship’s pumps were proving inadequate and desperation.
Lauren decided that it was impossible for her to remain any longer in this condition without loss of the vessel and cargo, and our own lives, and so at his orders the crew cut the anchor cables.
Just a few minutes later the vessel ran onto shore about two miles east of Race Point at the tip of Cape Cod,
on what are now known as the peaked hill bars, more than 39 nautical miles from Cape Ann, and north of the town of Truro.

[10:36] The first notice of this wreck ran in the boston newspapers on december 16th, probably getting lost in the news of that evening’s tea party.
When a group of patriots stressed in crude native american costumes, destroyed the cargoes of tea that had arrived in boston A few days later. Another piece ran in the December 20 Boston Gazette and Country Journal.
Captain Loring in a brig from London for this place, having 58 chests of the detested tea onboard, was cast ashore on the back of Cape Cod. Last Friday.
It is expected the Cape Indians will give us a good account of the T against our next.
That fate was exactly what the legal owner of the T was trying to avoid.
After seeing news of the shipwreck in the papers, deconcini Richard Clark’s son, Jonathan Road as quickly as he could to the outer Cape to salvage the Williams cargo.

[11:33] Despite pressure from the local patriots, he was eventually able to gather the T safely in Provincetown with a little bit of assistance.
While clark made the 119 mile Ride, Justice of the Peace, john Green O took charge of the salvage operation.
He compensated the local laborers who took on the job by dividing the Contents of one damaged tea chest among them.
The night after the work was completed, December 18, another storm hit race point and what was left of the William was completely destroyed.

[12:10] Local captains from P town and Truro refused to load the salvage T on their vessels, but eventually clark and Greenoe convinced the captain of a Salem schooner to transport 51 chests of tea to Fort William at Castle Island for safekeeping.
Clark paid Greenoe for overseeing the salvage operation with two chests of tea.
One of the chests was seized and burned by p town patriots, while the other was offered for sale by a shady character.
A few months later, as reported in the Connecticut journal, Lime, March 17.

[12:47] Yesterday one William Lampson of Martha’s vineyard came to this town with a bag of tea, about £100 on horseback, which he was peddling about the country.
It appeared that he was about a business which he supposed would render him obnoxious to the people, which gave reason to suspect that he had some of the detestable tea lately landed at Cape Cod.
And upon examination it appeared to the satisfaction of all present, to be a part of that very t,
whereupon a number of the sons of Liberty assembled in the evening kindled a fire,
and committed its contents to the flames, where it was all consumed, and the ashes buried on the spot in testimony of their utter abhorrence of all t subject to a duty for the purpose of raising a revenue in America,
a laudable example for our brethren in Connecticut.
The 51 chests of Salvage T reached Castle Island on January 4, 1774.
By then most of the T consign ease, who’d witnessed the mob’s rage over T two weeks before, had gotten cold feet, and the T sat unsold.
By March, much of it had been seized by the Customs Service for non payment of the controversial duties.
It’s possible that some of Richard Clark’s T had been redistributed for sale, and then it might have been among the tea that was burned by Boston Patriots in a second smaller tea party on March eight.

[14:17] Of course t was not the only cargo carried by the despised T ships.
Very famously, the Dartmouth was carrying the first edition of poems on various subjects.
Religious and moral, the first volume of poetry by Phillis wheatley, but there were also other perfectly mundane cargo’s aboard all the tea ships,
according to Norton’s account, to William, also carried medicines, black pepper and glass bottles.
Most importantly to our story this week, however, it carried about 300 of the first streetlights for Boston,
And a postscript to a letter he wrote to a friend, in which he describes the destruction of the tea Boston merchant John Andrews noted on December 19, 1773.
I give you joy of your easy riddance of the painful herb being just informed by the arrival of the post that it’s gone from whence it came.
I forgot to acquaint you last evening. That lowering in a brick belonging to Clark, one of the Kansai Knees is onshore at the back of Cape Cod, drove the other by a storm last Friday week.
Who has the last quota of tea for this place being 58 chests, which completes the 400.

[15:34] It’s unlucky that loring has the lamps on board for illuminating our streets.
I’m sorry if they are lost, as we shall be deprived of their benefit this winter, and consequence of it, Bostonians were deprived of street lamps during the winter of 1773, but they wouldn’t be deprived forever.

[15:55] The lamps on their way to Boston were the product of a series of town meetings that culminated in a vote in favor of acquiring street lamps.
On May 11, citizens of boston voluntarily contributed money by subscription to pay for the new lamps.
So all that was needed was enabling legislation That in turn was passed in July 1773, and authorized the purchase of,
lamps for enlightening the streets, Lanes, alleys, or passageways in the town of Boston.
Why this required an act of the State Legislature, I’m not quite sure, but the new law does a good job of pointing out why the town needed lights.
The enlightening of streets, lanes, alleys and passageways in large and populous towns by lamps hung up in the night time is not only ornamental,
but very advantageous to all such persons as have occasion to pass in and through the same about their lawful business,
and tends greatly for the safety and preservation of the inhabitants by the discovery and prevention of fires, burglaries, robberies, thefts, and other lesser breaches of the peace.

[17:06] The first section empowers the Selectmen of boston to set up and fix such and so many lamps, and in such streets, lanes, alleys and passageways in said town,
for enlightening the same as the town, or such persons as they may appoint, shall in their judgment, think necessary and for the common benefit,
and the better to preserve and regulate such lamps, said selectman, are hereby empowered to appoint in contract with any person or persons for the lighting, cleaning stuffing and repairing the same.
The second section mandates that anyone who accidentally damages a lamp or the post its on will be liable for the cost of repair, and that anyone who deliberately damages or destroys one would face a fine of £20.
In addition, If any person or person sentenced to pay the Afore said fine of £20 and costs shall refuse to pay the same.
He or they shall be punished for the offense by being imprisoned not exceeding six months or by whipping not exceeding 20 stripes.

[18:13] Do not plan on damaging a boston street lamp.
The Selectmen were empowered to take down a, remove any post,
or sign there on in any streets, lanes, alleys, or passageways in said town, or that now are, or hereafter may be fixed, or that adjoin to any dwelling house or building,
in case they shall judge that any such poster sign tends to intercept or in any way lessen the light and said lamp.

[18:43] If the owner of the obstruction didn’t comply within 48 hours, the Selectmen could have someone to remove the problem themselves and find the owner six shillings for every day.
The obstruction remained at the same time.
The legislation reassured property owners that the owners of any lamps placed or set up and said town at their own private expense, may at any time take down or remove the same or extinguish the light there of,
anything in this act, notwithstanding.

[19:15] Any fines levied against someone who violated the new law by leaving up a signer post that obstructed the street lamps, or by deliberately damaging one of the lamps were to be used for the upkeep and repair of the lamps.
Well, half the fine would go to the repair budget. The other half would be paid out as a bounty to whoever informed on the person who violated the law.
If the town thought that more lamps, repairs or other supporting equipment were necessary, beyond what the fines would pay for the final section of the law, authorized them to levy a tax on all residents to pay for them.

[19:55] With the authorizing legislation in place, it was up to the select mint of the town of boston to appoint a committee to oversee street lighting.
And it will be left up to that committee to come up with a plan, luckily for us, one of revolutionary boston’s most reliable diarists was appointed to be part of the committee boston.
Merchant john Rose Diary records his first day on this duty.

[20:20] March 1st afternoon I spent at Faneuil Hall with the committee about lighting the lamps present were myself, Henderson inches, William phillips, Benjamin Austin and Mr Appleton.
And yes, that is probably the same. Benjamin Austin, whose son fought a bloody duel to defend his honor in 1806.
You can listen to episode 216 from February 2021. For more about that story.

[20:49] Over the course of the next few meetings, the committee slowly gathered more members, some of whom have famous names.
Rose Diary records the addition of deacon Ebenezer Storer of the brattle street church on May 4th.
Then even more members are named later in May. As the committee divided the city into lighting districts and chose locations for the lamps.

[21:13] May 18th, attended the committee about fixing the lamps.
We finished the north part of the town number 1234 and five divisions,
present were myself, deacon phillips, Deacon Storer thomas Gray, Mr Apple din Major Daws, to which were the Gentleman of the several awards.
Mr Jonathan Brown, Mr john leach.
Mr paul. Revere Mr Edward Proctor Mr thomas Hitman, May 24th this day I went with the committee about the lamps to view the wards number 67 and eight which we finished.

[21:54] I’m sure you recognize. Mr Paul Revere’s name, their half dozen books and articles I looked at named john Hancock is a member of this committee as well, but I wasn’t able to find his name in Rose Diary.

[22:08] I’m not sure at what point exactly. The committee decided that the lamps needed to be ordered from England, but they did.
They selected lamps that had metal bases and glass tops not too dissimilar from today’s gas lamps, the difference, of course, is that the earlier street lamps did not burn pressurized gas delivered from centralized gas lines.
Instead, they had a metal oil reservoir at the bottom, a metal burner that held an adjustable fabric wick and then a glass shade above to shelter the small flame from the wind.
All the parts of the lamps minus the poles or elbows that they’d be mounted to were manufactured in England.
The order had to cross the atlantic in one direction. Then the lamps had to be manufactured. Procured and loaded onto a ship along with some t to cross the atlantic in the other direction.

[23:03] It appears that Boston Street lamps were salvaged alongside the tea that washed up at race point in December 1773.
Though, I couldn’t find the exact date. They were brought back to boston around the first of the year And John Rose Diary.
There’s a gap in the discussion about the committee for the lamps for a few months following their September meeting until the next meeting is noted on January 8, 1774.
On that same day, boston craftsman, thomas Newell’s Diary notes began to make the tops of the glass lamps for this town,
so it appears that although the glass for the street lamps was destroyed in the record, the William.
The lantern bases were recovered and restored locally With the oil lamps in Boston and almost ready for installation.
The street lighting committee kicked into high gear in January 1774 with rose diary recording meetings to discuss the details of installing the lamps and how they’d be operated each day.

[24:08] January 19, I attended the carpenter and blacksmith and marking out the places the lamps are to be fixed, january 20th This for noon the Selectmen and the committee for the lamps met at Faneuil Hall.
We consulted on the method of lighting them, and had a long conference with mr smith for that purpose.

[24:29] An appendix to a book about, of all things gas manufacturing plants in massachusetts contains this critique of early street lamps, highlighting the very manual method of lighting them that the town came up with.
They were dim erratic, sometimes blew out in high winds, smoked up.
Their glass enclosures with soot occasionally caught fire and tended to cast local pools of light rather than illuminating a long swath of road,
and they had to be manually lit and extinguished each day by roving lamp lighters equipped with poles and ladders.
The lamplighter trade originally developed to service streetlights that burned whale oil or Naptha introduced in Boston in 1773, and paid for out of public subscription and continued as these were replaced by gas lights.

[25:21] As that paragraph points out, the new street lamps were fueled by whale oil, which burned brighter and whiter than the competition, and had the added benefit of being provided by the vast Nantucket new Bedford whaling fleets,
After over a decade of street lamps in Boston John Adams describes a conversation that he had with British Prime Minister, William Pitt the younger in a 1785 letter,
promoting american whale oil is a trade good for import into Britain.
Adams wondered why, despite having introduced street lighting into London nearly a century before boston, the english seemed to prefer an inferior fuel.
He praised the crime fighting nature of the bright white light of boston street lamps which was provided by american whale oil.

[26:11] There could not be a doubt that spermaceti oil might find a market in most of the great cities of europe, which were illuminated in the night, as it is so much better and cheaper than the vegetable oil that’s commonly used.
The fat of the spermaceti whale gives the clearest and most beautiful flame of any substance that’s known in nature.
And we are all surprised that you prefer darkness and the consequent robberies, burglaries, and murders in your streets, to the receiving as a Remittance.
Are spermaceti oil.
The lamps around Grosvenor Square, I know, and in Downing Street to, I suppose, are dimmed by midnight and extinguished by two o’clock,
whereas our oil would burn bright till nine o’clock in the morning and chase away before the watchman all the villains and save you the trouble and danger of introducing a new police into the city.

[27:04] Every day, a boston lamplighter would make his rounds, probably within a single lighting district.
In the morning he had to extinguish the preceding nights lamps fill the oil reservoir and trimming the wicks that needed it.
That evening he’d make the rounds again carrying a lantern and a piece of reed or straw that could transfer a flame from his lantern to each street lamp at least until friction matches became common in the mid 1800s.

[27:34] The first time that Boston’s lamp lighters made their rounds was in March of 1774.
In his diary entry for March 2nd thomas Newell, the craftsman who had repaired the lamps wrote a number of lamps in town were lighted this evening for the first time,
to responsible persons from each ward have been appointed to decide with the approval of the general committee upon the most fitting locations in which to place the new lanterns.

[28:04] John Rose dire entry for the next day, March three, simply states last evening.
The lamps related for the first time they burnt tolerable. Well, the massachusetts gazeta that same day gives a sense of how many lamps were available for the first lighting Last evening.
Two or 300 lamps fixed in several streets and lanes of this town were lighted.
They will be of great utility to this metropolis.

[28:35] See a Quincy Norton’s essay about lanterns in early America gives us a sense of where these first two or 300 lamps were located.

[28:45] From a careful reading of the historical notes relating to matters that detailed events of this period in boston, it is evident that these street lanterns were distributed over an area of perhaps not more than a mile in either direction from the old State House.
No description of these lamps has been found in any of the ancient records of boston.
The presumption is that they were small, 10 framed lanterns, and that they were suspended from iron cranes that were secured two buildings on the corners of the most frequented thoroughfares.

[29:19] At the end of the first month of street lighting, john Rowe and the members of his committee wound down their service rose.
Last diary entry on the subject describes how they delivered their final report, March 30 town meeting this morning.
I was chose moderator. We delivered in our reports respecting the erecting and fixing up the lamps in this town.
It was accepted In 1828.
The Boston Gas Company erected a single gas lamp on a pole in Haymarket Square meant as a demonstration lamp.
This privately owned fixture was the first outdoor gas lamp in the city of boston.

[30:01] Gas was centrally supplied so a lamplighter wouldn’t have to fill the oil reservoir on each lamp every day.
The cloth mantles didn’t require daily trimming and rarely burned out and gas could be delivered so cheaply that it eventually became more economical to leave the lamps running than to pay someone to light them every day.
In 1830 for the city made the leap installing the first public gas lamps around Faneuil Hall.
Over the next few decades, gas slowly replaced oil on the streets of boston,
from the 18 thirties on nearly all new streetlights were fueled by gas,
By the 18 nineties, there were conversion kits to easily convert the last few oil lamps over to gas, while electric arc lights marked a few city square starting the 18 eighties.

[30:54] A summary written by marta Crilly of the city archives describes how boston converted from gas to electric street lighting at the beginning of the 20th century and then surprisingly began converting some areas back to gas.
A few years later in 1909, the city began installing tungsten electric lamps.
Three years later in 1912, tungsten electric lamps began to replace existing naptha lamps.
By 1913, all gas lamps in boston proper had been converted to electric the following year, all lamps in lower Roxbury were converted to electric.
Although the city used electric lamps in boston proper and areas of Roxbury, it continued to use gas lamps in its residential districts.
The last gas lamps were installed in residential districts in 1948.
During the 1940s, Mercury Vapor electric lamps were also installed on many of Boston’s major streets During the first half of the 20th century.
Outside vendors maintained the city’s gas lamps, but in 1958 the city took over gas lamp maintenance.
Four years later the city began to change electric lamps in historic neighborhoods back to gas lamps.
Electric to gas changeovers continued into the 1990s.

[32:20] So, despite being an iconic symbol of historic Boston, most of the gas lamps that we see on the streets of Boston today were newly installed during the mid 1960s.
Perhaps they’re not quite as historic as I thought By 2010, which was the most recent figure, I could find.
The city of Boston owned about 67,000 streetlights, most of which have been converted over to L. E. D. in the past few years.
About 2800 gas lights remain in service and some of these now have an automatic solar mechanism that allows them to be shut off during the daytime.

[33:01] In a 2019 interview with boston dot com dan webb of the city’s street lighting division described the maintenance that the remaining gas lamps require,
first of all, the cloth Mandel’s need frequent replacement at best.
They last about a year and they’re easily damaged by everything from falling ice to a car bumping up against a light pole.
The glass tops of the lamps are also easily destroyed by falling ice and they’re constantly being slowly obscured by soot webb noted that unbroken clear glass panes are usually replaced about once a year.
But explain that it can be more frequent in some areas saying when you have a lot of tourists in the city, you want it welcoming, You don’t want them dirty.
So we actually try to step up the game and keep the areas where the tourists are real clean.
And then during the week we’ll maintain the other areas.

[33:58] Beginning in the spring of 2022, the Wu administration started examining the possibility of converting our nostalgic old gas lamps to led.
In March, they installed a single L. E. D. Assembly into an existing gas lamp on Stuart Street in Bay Village.
It’s designed to cast a very warm light like the gas burner that it replaces rather than the bluish light that we get from most LED street lights.
They’re supposed to remain basically maintenance free for 7-10 years rather than requiring the fairly constant stream of work that their gas counterparts, need saving the city about $200,000 a year,
replacing our gas streetlights would also eliminate a common source of the many constant gas leaks around the city, which kills street trees, as well as perhaps posing a safety risk.
The gas, whether it’s burned or leaked, also contributes to climate change, and that’s what’s driving this initiative.
In March of 2022, the city’s chief of streets, Joshua, Franklin Hodge told the globe the planet is facing a climate emergency, and the only way to address that is the transition off fossil fuels.
We want to do our part to replace our terribly inefficient gas lighting with something that’s compatible with a sustainable climate.

[35:23] Mayor wu hopes to replace all the city’s gas lights with led Michael Donaghy, the city street lighting and asset manager told the boston son our goal is to replicate what was installed here.
We use this type of burner assembly throughout the city.
The goal is to have a sense of consistency.

[35:45] Perhaps predictably, neighborhood associations in the neighborhoods with gas lamps are opposed to the change in Beacon Hill, which has the most gas lamps of any area of the city.
The neighborhood association is just as flatly opposed to led lighting as they were to a D A compliant wheelchair ramps in the back bay.
The new light assemblies are seen as just a bit too red to be installed on marlborough Street.
Meanwhile, in Bay Village, the head of the neighborhood association said that there wasn’t really a problem with the new light assemblies as long as the lamps in Beacon Hill in the back bay are converted first.
So Bay Village doesn’t end up with one off lights.

[36:30] To learn more about boston’s first streetlights check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 266.
I’ll have links to the legislation authorizing the town selectman to install lamps on the streets.
The article from the boston gazette and country Journal about the wreck of the T shape William.
The letter from john andrews noting that the first street lights went down with the William and merchant john Rose Diary, which you can search for the word lamps to read about his work on the lighting committee.
I’ll also link to Mary Beth Norton’s article about the wreck of the William.
C. a Quincy Norton’s essay about lanterns in early America and some 2022 news articles about the city’s efforts to replace our gas lamps with led.
Plus I’ll include that print by walter Gilbert page portraying the boston massacre and the pre streetlight darkness of a boston night.

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Music

Jake:
[38:06] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners.