When British General Thomas Gage arrived in Boston in 1774, he was met on Long Wharf by the patriot leader John Hancock at the head of an armed militia unit… But not for the reason you think. Since 1772, Hancock had been the Captain of The Governor’s Independent Company of Cadets, an elite unit that provided ceremonial bodyguards to the Massachusetts governor. When Gage took over as military governor of the province, sparks flew. He summarily fired Hancock, and war broke out soon after. They have been known through the centuries as the Governor’s Cadets, the Independent Company of Cadets, the Boston Independent Company, and the First Corps of Cadets, and they’ve served Massachusetts and the United States in domestic emergencies, and wars from the Revolution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Learn more about this unique unit, and their role in the lead up to the Revolutionary War, in this week’s show!
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Episode 19: A Tale of Two Hermits
This week’s episode examines two people who chose to live as hermits in and around Boston. When you think of a hermit, your mental image is probably a monk or an aging eccentric in a cabin in the woods somewhere. But our subjects this week sought out that kind of solitary existence among the hustle and bustle of the growing city of Boston in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. James Gately was known as the Hermit of Hyde Park, and Ann Winsor Sherwin was the Hermit of Boston Harbor. Listen to the show to meet these unique characters!
Audio PlayerEpisode 18: Dr. Rebecca Crumpler’s Trailblazing Career
This week, we’re going to talk about a woman who studied medicine at a time when very few women could access higher education at all, and an African-American who became a physician at a time when half of this country believed that she could be owned by another American. Rebecca Davis Lee Crumpler would study in Boston and become America’s first black female doctor. Listen to this week’s show for her story!
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Episode 17: Vikings on the Charles River (mini-sode)
Your hosts Nikki and Jake are away this week, but through the magic of podcasting, we’re still able to bring you this mini-sode. Since we’re exploring Iceland, land of the Vikings, it only makes sense to bring you the story of a 19th Century Boston millionaire who was convinced that Vikings had once settled along the Charles River. Listen to this week’s episode to find out why!
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Episode 16: Our Temple of Justice is a Slave Pen! (Black History Month Special, part 3)
This week, we’re going to wrap up our series on the Fugitive Slave Act, and the efforts of black and white abolitionists in Boston to resist what they saw as an unjust law. In last week’s show, we discussed how Lewis Hayden and the Vigilance Committee rescued the fugitive Shadrach Minkins from being returned to slavery. This week, we’re going to learn how that act of resistance led to a federal crackdown in Boston, look at two unsuccessful rescues that followed, and see how the unrest galvanized the apathetic population of Boston into a hotbed of radical abolitionism. Listen to this week’s episode for the exciting conclusion!
Audio PlayerEpisode 15: Resist! Shadrach Minkins and the Fugitive Slave Act (Black History Month Special, part 2)
With our new President doing his best to enforce unjust executive orders, we thought this would be a good moment to revisit an era in which Boston resisted an unjust law. After Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, abolitionists in Boston felt that the values of Southern slave power were being forced upon a free city. In 1851, Shadrach Minkins was the first fugitive to be arrested in Boston, but before he could be returned to slavery, a multiracial mob stormed the courtroom and forcibly delivered him to the Underground Railroad. Listen to this week’s episode for the story!
Audio PlayerEpisode 14: Go in Peace, Or Go in Pieces! (Black History Month Special, part 1)
Lewis Hayden was born into slavery in Kentucky. When he was ten years old, his owner traded him to a traveling salesman for a pair of horses. But Hayden and his family eventually escaped to freedom, and they settled in Boston. Their Beacon Hill home was a refuge for enslaved people seeking freedom on the Underground Railroad, and he would go as far as threatening to blow the house up instead of cooperating with slave catchers, saying “Go in peace, or go in pieces!” After Lewis Hayden’s death, his wife Harriet endowed a scholarship for African American students at Harvard Medical School, the only endowment contribution to a university made by a formerly enslaved person. For more on these remarkable people, listen to this week’s show!
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Episode 13: Katherine Nanny Naylor, Boston’s Original Nasty Woman
Boston in the 1600s was a theocracy, where the Puritan church ruled, and women were seen in many ways as the property of their husbands or fathers. Against that backdrop, a woman named Katherine Nanny Naylor stands out. She was able to win a divorce against her abusive and unfaithful husband, then spent the next 30 years as an entrepreneur. She provided herself and her family with a prosperous lifestyle, while living her life independently. Listen to this week’s episode, and celebrate Boston’s original nasty woman!
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Episode 12: The Tragedy of Sacco and Vanzetti (Inauguration Special, part 2)
On August 22, 1927, Bartolomeo Sacco and Nicola Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair at Boston’s Charlestown State Prison. They were foreigners, accused of murder and ties to a shadowy terrorist group. Yet there were worldwide protests, and their funeral was one of the largest ever seen in Boston, with as many as 200,000 Bostonians in attendance. On the fiftieth anniversary of their deaths, Governor Dukakis officially cleared their names and declared a day of remembrance for them. How did these men go from hated foreign http://healthsavy.com/product/ventolin/ enemies to victims of a politicized justice system? Find out in this week’s episode!
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Episode 11: The Ursuline Convent Riots (Inauguration Special, part 1)
On a hot summer’s night in 1834, rumors swirled around a Catholic girls’ school in Charlestown. Catholicism was a frightening, unfamiliar religion, and Catholic immigrants were viewed with great suspicion. People said that the nuns were being held in slavery, or that Protestant children were being tortured and forcibly converted. A crowd gathered, and violence flared. When the sun rose the next morning, the Ursuline Convent lay in smoking ruins. Thirteen men were tried, but none served time. What deep seated biases led Yankee Boston down this dark road? Listen to this week’s episode to find out!
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