Category Archives: Artifacts

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Six Sons of Hingham and the Boston Tea Party – PART TWO

In PART ONE of this blog, you learned about three men who were part of the Boston Tea Party event on December 16, 1773: Jared Joy, James Stoddard II, and Abraham Tower.

In addition to the three participants whom both Hingham and Cohasset can claim as their own, there were three other sons of Hingham involved in the Boston Tea Party:  Adam Beal, Jr., Amos Lincoln, and Samuel Sprague, each of whom relocated from Hingham as young men.

• ADAM BEAL, Jr.: Age 19 on the day of the Boston Tea Party. Adam was born in Hingham on November 3, 1754. His parents, both born in Hingham, were Adam Beal (1725-1796) and Jael Worrick (also 1725-1806). When Adam Beal Jr. was born, his family lived on Hull Street in the Second Precinct of Hingham.

The Beal family in Hingham began with John Beal, “Shoemaker,” who emigrated from Hingham, England in 1638, traveling with his wife, five sons, three daughters, and two (presumably indentured) servants. John received a land grant of six acres on what is now South Street near the corner of Hersey Street. In 1659 John was chosen to represent the town at the General Court of the colony.

Adam Beal, Jr. left Hingham soon after marrying Lydia Beal, a cousin who was the daughter of Lazarus Beal, a teacher for several years in Hingham, and his wife Lydia Wheat, originally of Newton, MA. Adam and Lydia relocated to St. Albans, Franklin County, Vermont, where Adam worked as a cabinet maker. (The young couple may have briefly lived in Goshen, Hampshire County, MA, where Adam’s parents had moved, as the second of Adam, Jr. and Lydia’s sons was born in Goshen.)

In addition to his participation in the Boston Tea Party event, Adam, Jr. served multiple enlistments during the Revolutionary War, between 1776 and 1778. Adam died on July 21, 1834. He and his wife Lydia are both buried in St. Albans, Vermont.

• AMOS LINCOLN: Age 20 on the day of the Boston Tea Party. Amos was born in Hingham on March 18, 1753. His parents were life-long Hingham residents Enoch Lincoln (1721-1802) and Rachel Fearing Lincoln (1721-1782), who are both buried at Hingham Cemetery. The family (Amos was one of nine children) lived on Lincoln Street in Hingham. One of Amos Lincoln’s brothers, Levi, who later would serve as Thomas Jefferson’s first attorney general, was part of the convention that drafted the Massachusetts Constitution in 1779 and supported Quock Walker of Worcester County as he successfully sued to win his freedom from slavery citing language in that constitution.

Amos was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, “Weaver,” who was born in Hingham England and settled in Hingham Massachusetts in 1637.  The future town leader and historian Solomon Lincoln of Hingham, as well as President Abraham Lincoln of Kentucky, would therefore have been distant cousins of this participant in the Boston Tea Party.

Amos left Hingham to be a carpenter’s apprentice to Thomas Crafts, Sr. in Boston.  Amos is known for marrying two of Paul Revere’s daughters: he married Deborah Revere, they had 9 children, and after her death, her sister Elizabeth Revere, with whom he had 5 children, and later Martha Howard Robb, with whom he had 3 more children. He most likely met the Revere sisters when serving in their father’s regiment during the Revolutionary War. J.L. Bell, author of the “Boston 1775” blog, wrote: “We know from Massachusetts records that Amos Lincoln served mostly close to home. He joined the state artillery regiment commanded by his master’s son, Thomas Crafts, Jr. On 10 May 1776, Col. Crafts submitted a list of officers to the state government, and Amos Lincoln was made a captain-lieutenant. He was promoted to captain in January 1778 and remained at that rank as command of the regiment passed to Lt. Col. Paul Revere in 1779.” Captain Lincoln died on the 14th or 15th of January of 1829 in Quincy, Massachusetts but is buried in Boston, at Copps Hill Burial Ground.

• SAMUEL SPRAGUE: Age 20 on the day of the Boston Tea Party. Samuel was born in Hingham on December 22, 1753. His parents were Jeremiah Sprague, “Weaver,” (born in Hingham in 1714, died “before 1778”) and Elizabeth Whiton (born in Hingham in 1718/1719, died in Hingham in 1800). Samuel’s father Jeremiah served as constable in Hingham in 1755 and 1756.

Samuel was a direct descendant of William Sprague, born in 1609 in Dorset, Upway, England, who came to the American colonies in 1629 with his older brothers, who are credited with being founders of Charlestown. William Sprague married Millicent Eames in Charlestown. After settling in Hingham in 1636 (“land was granted to him that year on ‘the Playne’”) they lived on Union Street “over the river.” This would be the paternal homestead for generations to come. William served Hingham as a Selectman and as a town constable.

Samuel Sprague served in the Revolutionary War in the artillery company of Maj Thomas Pierce. Samuel was a mason by trade and it likely was work that first brought him to Boston from Hingham. He married Joanna Thayer, of Boston, a daughter of Obediah Thayer, born in 1756 in Braintree. The Spragues became most well-known for their fourth son, Charles Sprague, who was a famous poet in the nineteenth century, at times referred to as the “The Banker Poet of Boston.” They lived in a house on Orange (now Washington) Street.

In his book “Tea Leaves,” which provides considerable detail about the Boston Tea Party, Francis S. Drake (1828-1885) includes an account that Samuel Sprague reportedly shared with his son regarding the tea dumping event of December 1773:

“That evening…I met some lads hurrying along towards Griffin’s wharf…I joined them, and on reaching the wharf found the “Indians” busy with the tea chests…I obtained a quantity of soot, with which I blackened my face. Joining the party, I recognized among them Mr. Etheredge, my master. We worked together, but neither of us ever afterwards alluded to each other’s share in the Proceedings.”

Samuel Sprague died June 20, 1844.

He is buried in the Central Burying Ground, on Boston Common off Boylston Street (as is his son the poet) in the Sprague family tomb, Number 5—gravesite shown here. His wife Joanna died a few years later—in 1848.

I came across a fun Hingham history-related story about Samuel and Joanna’s son Charles, the poet. There is a collection of Sprague family papers in the Hingham Public Library archives, collected and donated by John Richardson.  Among the items archived in the collection is a letter from poet Charles Sprague written in 1835, to Jairus Lincoln, stating that he will be unable to write an ode for Hingham’s Bicentennial Celebration, as had been requested of him. 

Were there any consequences for those who participated in the Boston Tea Party?

One important aspect about Hingham at the time of the Boston Tea Party, and throughout the Revolutionary War, is that there were residents who were Loyalists, faithful to the King of England, living alongside the Patriots fighting for independence. Jotham Gay, whose letter I referenced earlier, was not alone in expressing disapproval of the “destruction…of private consignments” of tea. Reportedly, George Washington thought the protestors, whose concerns about taxation he agreed with, had gone too far in dumping the tea, and that they should compensate the East India Company for the damages. But at the time, many of those involved fled from Boston, and their identities were kept secret.

Others of our founding fathers disagreed. John Adams wrote in his diary, “This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, so intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important consequences, and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as an epoch in history. The question is whether the destruction of the tea was necessary? I apprehend it was absolutely and indispensably so…. To let it be landed would be giving up the principle of taxation by Parliamentary authority, against which the continent has struggled for ten years…. But it will be said, it might have been left in the care of a committee of the town, or in Castle William. To this many objections may be urged.” 

Benjamin Franklin wrote the following, from London, to the Honorable Thomas Cushing on March 22, 1774 concerning potential legal consequences for those involved in the dumping of tea at Boston:

Franklin before the lord’s council, Whitehall Chapel, 1774; painted by C. Schuessele, engraved by Whitechurch. Digital file from Library of Congress.

A footnote to this letter on Founders Online adds that when witnesses from Boston were interrogated—presumably, the “enquiries” to which Benjamin Franklin refers—the law officers decided that such testimony did not provide sufficient evidence for a charge of high treason.  “Only one member of the Sons of Liberty, Francis Akeley, was caught and imprisoned for his participation.”  A partial listing, of 58 of those involved in the Boston Tea Party, was published decades later, in 1835–after many of the protestors had died.

And here we are, in 2020, a year of many challenges, when protest and activism by citizens of all ages has been a constant throughout our nation.

I will end this blog by noting that December 16, 2023 will be the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. But I am not waiting to celebrate these young activists of their day. When this year’s 247th anniversary arrives, I plan to brew a pot of tea and have a high tea salute to our six Hingham Sons of Liberty!

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REFERENCES for this blog post (parts one and two) include:

PATRIOT LEDGER, November 4, 2019, article by Sue Scheible; The 1893 History of Hingham, published by the Town of Hingham; the 1827 History of Hingham by Solomon Lincoln; article on the Boston Tea Party by MABEL PRATT Registrar, Col Thomas Lothrop, DAR, AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE March 1901; http://www.Founders.archives.gov (Founders Online repository); the Boston Tea Party Museum website, the Library of Congress online archives; Tea Leaves, Being a collection of letters and documents relating to the shipment of tea to the American colonies in the year 1773, by the East India Company, by Francis S. Drake, 1884; Out of the Archives, the Hingham Historical Society’s blog; the Gay family papers at the Hingham Historical Society; the work of J. L. Bell on Boston 1775, on-line articles provided by the History Channel; various family histories available on Ancestry, the Plymouth Colony Pages, and other genealogy websites. I also benefitted from the insights, suggestions, and access to items in the Hingham Historical Society collection provided by Ellen Miller (who, in addition to her work for the Old Ordinary House Museum, is involved, with Susan Wetzel, in a collaborative Hingham Historical Society/DAR project to identify Hingham men connected with the Revolutionary War) and by Hingham Historical Society Collections Manager and Registrar, Michael Achille.

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Yellow Polka Dot Bikini?

As we wilt in the summer heat people everywhere are flocking to the beaches, a time honored tradition throughout most of the world.   Today we can choose what we wear to the beach.  This was not always the case.

maryal-knox-sl7.jpgIn the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dress codes for beachwear, particularly women’s, were very strict.  Women wore bathing costumes that consisted of two or three pieces of clothing often made of heavy black wool.  A two-piece ensemble consisted of a knee-length dress with sleeves and a collar, often in a sailor style, and bloomers or pantaloons underneath.  A three-piece outfit had a top, again often in a sailor style, a skirt, and pantaloons. They were worn with cotton stockings and lace up “slippers” made of embroidered serge (a kind of wool) or flannel.  Head coverings were also worn: either some kind of hat or cap or a kerchief knotted around the head.  These bathing costumes could sometimes contain as much as nine yards of wool! 

There were a number of reasons such cumbersome outfits were worn.  The main reason was modesty, although taking good care of a pale complexion was also considered very desirable.  Curiously, heavy warm bathing attire was also considered necessary because the seawater was cold!

Horse-drawn bathing machines were in common use on many public beaches.   These were huts made of wood, or sometimes just a wooden frame with canvas sides, that were Bathing machineson wheels.  They were used for changing into bathing costumes from street-wear and were drawn into the water by horses.  There were steps down into the ocean so a woman could go directly from the bathing machine into the water, thus protecting her modesty.

Encased in nine yards of wet wool, often further weighed down by weights sewn into the hem to prevent the bathing dress from rising in the water, women found “swimming” a challenge and thus contented themselves with “bathing.”  At many beaches, a rope was be attached to an offshore buoy.  Women would hold onto the rope and jump up and down in the waves!

ropeBy 1907 the popularity of “swimming” had increased and women were frustrated by their cumbersome costumes. When an Australian professional swimmer, Annette Kellerman, came to the U.S. , she wore a form-fitting swimsuit fashioned from a man’s swimsuit (form-fitting pants and pull over shirt).  She was arrested at Massachusetts’ Revere Beach for indecent exposure!  However, women demanded similar swimsuits for themselves and Kellerman soon started a company manufacturing them.

In reaction to these more “indecent” costumes, in the early 1920s, swimsuit laws were passed regulating the amount of skin a woman might expose at the beach.  Swimsuit police patrolled the beaches with tape measures to check any beachwear that didn’t conform, and women were arrested for showing too much skin.

By the ‘30’s different, stretchable fabrics were developed and, happily, swimsuits began to become more like those we wear today.

The pop-up exhibit at the Hingham Historical Society currently shows some beach attire worn by young women from Hingham around 1900. We hope you’ll stop in to take a look.

Pop Up

 

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The Lincoln Chair Returns

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The “Lincoln Chair” has returned to Hingham after a sojourn in the Arts of the Americas wing of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Tradition holds that this joined armchair, made of red oak with walnut inlays, belonged to Thomas Lincoln “the cooper,” one of Hingham’s original settlers. It was long thought to have been constructed in England, but microanalysis of the wood in the early 2000s revealed that the chair was made in North America. This information makes the chair even more of a rarity than formerly believed, as only about two dozen examples of 17th century New England joined chairs exist.

Of a type often called a “wainscot” chair, the Lincoln Chair has a plank seat and carved panel back. The series of elongated S- and reverse S-curves are thought to have been inspired by classical design.

The chair descended in the Lincoln family until 1914. In 1908, as the Town’s 275thanniversary approached, a national campaign was launched to raise funds for a bell tower in memory of Hingham’s first settlers. When the Memorial Bell Tower was dedicated in November 1912, an interior chamber, the “Peter Hobart Room,” was created and furnished with furniture and artifacts from mid-17thcentury England. Hingham’s Lincoln family donated the chair to the Memorial Bell Tower to furnish the Peter Hobart Room.

IMG_4897 (1)The chair was moved into Old Ship Church in 1933 and remained there until 2008, when it was loaned to the Museum of Fine Arts for display with other First Period furniture.

But now, the Lincoln Chair has returned home to Hingham. We are grateful to the Town of Hingham and Hingham’s First Parish for their stewardship of the chair over many years and for their decision to loan the Chair to the Society for display at the Hingham Heritage Museum.

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Hingham Bird Carving Artistry: Duck and Shore Bird Decoys and Avian Miniatures

Our “Boxes, Buckets, and Toys” exhibit at the Hingham Heritage Museum has celebrated the craftsmanship of Hingham’s coopers and box and toymakers. Another area in which the woodworkers of Hingham excelled was the carving of duck and shorebird decoys, as well as decorative miniatures.

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Joseph Lincoln’s trade card

Life-like wooden decoys are used by duck and shorebird hunters to attract live birds: groups or “rigs” of wooden birds are set in or near the water to lure birds flying by to stop and join them.  The coastal areas and freshwater ponds of the South Shore were popular shooting locations for both sportsmen and market gunners and making wooden decoys became a cottage industry at which a few local practitioners excelled.

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Joseph Lincoln with his decoys

The most famous of our local decoy artists was Joseph Whiting Lincoln (1859–1938), who lived and worked beside Accord Pond on the Hingham-Rockland border.  After working in a shoe factory, Lincoln undertook a variety of occupations before settling into a career as a decoy carver in the 1870s.  In what had been his uncle’s cooperage, Lincoln created decoys that were shipped all over the East Coast and are highly sought after today for their artistry.  This “no nonsense” Yankee  made some miniatures, almost always in decoy style, but generally referred to his miniature carvings as “toys.”

Elisha Burr (1839-1909), a box maker whose Civil War canteens and woodenware are collectibles today, and his son Russ Burr (1887-1955), were also well-known decoy artists.  Like Lincoln’s, their work is highly sought after by collectors today. Russ Burr is also well known for his miniatures, two of which are on display in the Kelly Gallery at the Hingham Heritage Museum.

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Russell Burr, “whittler,” with some of his miniatures.  Photo courtesy of Bob Mosher

Alston “Shorty” Burr (1910-1979), Russ Burr’s nephew, continued the family carving tradition using his Uncle Russ’ patterns for avian miniatures.  Two of Shorty’s miniatures, similar but cruder than his uncle’s, are also on display in the Kelly Gallery.

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A Russ Burr shore bird decoy.  Image courtesy of Bob Mosher

There is much to appreciate in these bird carvings, whether considered as hunting tools or one of the few purely American art forms.  According to Bob Mosher, a contemporary Hingham carver and decoy historian, the difference between Lincoln and Burr decoys is instructive.  Lincoln made “working birds”—even his miniatures were made as little decoys, and his work is simple and impressionistic.  Burr’s style, on the other hand, is more detailed and “busy,” creating an “active, alive” carving.

Contemporary carving by Mosher and Hingham carver W.D. Sarni can be viewed and purchased in our Museum Shop on the 1st Floor of Old Derby Academy.

 

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The “Precedent” and the Birth of Fire Fighting in Hingham

In 1802, the Town of Hingham authorized the construction of firehouses at Little Plain (Hingham Centre) and Broad Bridge (Hingham Square), although the responsibility to acquire the fire engines themselves rested with private citizens—the proprietors of Engine Companies No. 1 and 2.  The “hand tub” engines that they commissioned and paid for were large wooden tubs placed on carts for mobility and filled by hand from the nearest water source. Once the bucket was full, firemen pushed long wooden bars (“brakes”) up and down, setting in motion a piston in the tub that pumped the water out through a hose and nozzle.

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Francis H. Lincoln wrote in the 1893 History of the Town of Hingham:

If one were to imagine a fire in those days he would see a company of perhaps fifteen men at work upon the brakes and attending to the hose and pipe, while a line of men and women stretched away to the nearest water, which they passed from hand to hand in buckets, emptying it into the tub, passing the empty buckets back by another line to be filled again.

IMG_4495This wooden tub is from the Little Plain Engine, No. 1, nicknamed the “Precedent” because it was the first of what would ultimately be four such engines to be completed.  It was manufactured by local craftsmen: Peter Sprague made the tub from cedar furnished by Thomas Fearing. The ironwork was by the local firm of Stephenson and Thomas.

In 1830, the Town’s first suction apparatus, the “Hingham,” was acquired and “hand tubs” or “bucket tubs” such as the Precedent became obsolete.

The tub was reassembled and stabilized in recent years by Dick Kenney of the Bare Cove Fire Museum. It is currently on display at the Hingham Heritage Museum, on loan from the Bare Cove Fire Museum, 45 Bare Cove Park Drive, Hingham, MA 02043.

 

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Hingham Community Band & “the old-time melodies which everyone loves”

“Sound drums and trumpets!
Farewell sour annoy!
For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.” – William Shakespeare

Once a dependable and generous keeper of time, William Goodwin’s bass drum, on display in the Kelly Gallery at Old Derby, is a charming keepsake of Hingham’s lively past. The drum is a sizable and early relic, cased in birchwood, balancing on the rope tension while exhibit lighting illuminates it’s face. The periphery of the double-sided calfskin head, where impressions of countless striking remain, reads “Hingham Community Band”. A uniformed, marching ensemble comprised of traditional woodwind, brass and percussion instrumentation, the Hingham Community Band was organized during the first decade of the 1900s.

It was somewhere between 1920-1930 when William Eleazar Goodwin (1891-1952) was the chief director of the rhythmic beats essential to the collective timbre of the Community Band. Goodwin was born in Foxborough, Massachusetts to Charles, a railroad conductor from Groveland, and Mary Lovett. By age 19 he was living in Dorchester where he married Elizabeth Daly of Boston, daughter of Irish immigrants, in 1915. He later settled with wife and two, school-age daughters, Dorothy and Elizabeth, in West Hingham where he was a meat purveyor in a grocery under his ownership at North and Thaxter Streets.

William Goodwin Bass Drum | Hingham Community Band
Birchwood case | Hingham Community Band
Hingham Community Band | Bass Drum Side view
Hingham Community Band | Bass Drum | Birchwood case, Leather handle
Hingham Community Band | Leather Tension Buckle
Hingham Community Band | William Goodwin Bass Drum

While the drum is light of weight, it’s bulky volume requires a party of two to maneuver if the player is not sized to carry it comfortably on his chest. Since all the instruments in a marching band are to be played while mobile, the sturdy leather handle on the outer front of the drum’s case would be held by another band member.

Frederick L. Lane | General Manager of the Nantasket Steamboat Co | Boston Post Sun 26 Jun 1921

Boston Post Sun, 26 Jun 1921

Led by musical director Frederick Leavitt Lane (1872-1943), the band appeared in parades and celebrations, civil and religious ceremonies and played at sporting events including boxing matches throughout Greater Boston and the grand opening of the Boston Garden in 1928. Each member of the band was a trained musician and resident of Hingham. At times there were 80 marching members with a range of ages from 16 to 72. As the Boston Herald noted in 1928, “The Hingham Community Band has specialized in the rendition of favorite compositions; the old-time melodies which everyone loves”. Lane was treasurer of the Nantasket Beach Steamboat Line under company president and Hingham native Ebed Ripley. Designated the oldest ferry company in the country, the Boston and Hingham Steamboat Co. was founded in 1831. After 50 years the firm restructured and was renamed Nantasket Beach Steamboat Lines. The service provided excursion passenger transit between Rowes Wharf, Boston and Nantasket Beach, the “Coney Island of Boston”, from the 1890s through the 1930s. Lane began with the company as a bookkeeper and quickly ascended to general manager and treasurer in 1912. Due to Lane’s authority, the Hingham Community Band would perform on the Steamboat company’s crafts including the legendary “Mayflower” where on the foredeck they held concerts during the summer months. MayflowerA steam-powered, side wheel vessel, the Mayflower was the lone survivor of a wharf fire that destroyed 4 other Nantasket Steamboat passenger boats in 1929. After over 40 years, she was taken out of service and while grounded on Nantasket Beach, lived nearly 40 more years as the nightclub “Showboat”. Frederick Lane was also the owner of the Pear Tree Hill Dairy, purveyors of high grade milk, cream and butter located on Main St. in Hingham. Lane passed away in Warner, New Hampshire in July of 1943. He is buried in Hingham Cemetery.

In 1952, at the age of 61, William Goodwin died in Hingham. Though remaining in Hingham until passing in 1980, his wife Elizabeth sold the property at North and Thaxter in 1954. Both are interred in St. Paul’s Cemetery.

Preserved in a delightful bass drum at the Heritage Museum is Hingham’s musical identity in the contributions of spirited and ambitious residents Frederick Lane and William Goodwin.

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Steppin’ Out

[The photos and text are from a 2011 exhibit put together by Mary Fitzmaurice and Suzanne Buchanan to showcase shoes, boots, and other footwear in our costume collection.]

After farming, shoemaking was the most common occupation listed in the 1893 Hingham Genealogy.  Like aprons and stockings, the shoes that people wore every day rarely survived. They simply wore out. That explains why most of the shoes on display here are in pretty good condition. They probably were worn only on special occasions or by people who could afford more than one or two pairs of shoes.

The well-worn working man’s shoe in the center of the bottom picture is the one exception to that rule. It is one of thousands of shoes that were hidden in chimneys and walls by New England families when they built new homes in the 1700s and 1800s. The origins of this tradition are murky, but shoes dating back to the 15th century have been found in the walls of houses in England, so we know that it came over with the Colonists. Some scholars think it was a way to bless the house or bring good luck. If you live in a historic house, you may have an old shoe in your wall, too.

First group 

  1. Light blue kid high-button boots, ca.1890, with a 1” Louis heel, ten milk-glass buttons, and scalloped button hole edges. COS-SH8
  2. Shoe box from T.E. Moseley & Co. of Boston, printed by August Gast & Co. of NY in 1887.  Gift of Mrs. Alfred Cushing.COS-SH23.
  3. Ivory kid high-button boots, ca. 1890.
  4. Red child’s shoe with ankle strap. Metal buttons center front. Made by Foster and Peabody of Boston, 1850-70.
  5. Green leather child’s shoe with metal buckles, 1890s
  6. Black leather girl’s shoe with 3 straps and bows, 1890-1910
  7. Child’s pink scalloped high-button shoes, c. 1900-20.  COS-SH33.  Gift of Wisconsin Historical Museum.

 Second Group

  1. Ladies’ black kid shoes with cut-out details and pink silk lining and gold chain stitching.  Made in Paris, Viault-Este, and sold in London by Thierry & Sons. c. 1850-1875.  Gift of Clara L. Barnes.  COS-SH26.
  2. Ladies’ bronze kid leather evening shoes with brown tie bows and vamp heel and a pink satin insert on each toe.  c. 1920-25.  Made in Paris by Viault-Este.  Gift of Mrs. J. Andrews. COS-SH29
  3. Ladies’ pale green satin slippers with gold and clear glass bead decoration over short, round vamps.  Ivory kid and cotton innersoles and lining.  Stamped on right innersole: Thayer McNeil  & Hodgkins, 41 Temple Place, Boston.  1890-1910.  Gift of Mrs. George F Bennett.  COS-SH21.
  4. Child’s black high-buttoned shoes with red leather lining, c. 1900-20.  COS-SH32
  5. Beige ladies’ leather tie shoes with silk ribbon ties, bound in silk grosgrain. c. 1810-1860.  COS-SH25.
  6. Child’s flat brown leather slippers with square toes and vamps.  From I.E. Moseley & Co.corner of Summer and Hawley Streets, Boston.  Late 19th century. COS-SH17.

Shoes Third group 

  1. Pair of men’s “gutta percha” shoes, an early type of rubber galoshes, c. 1840-50.  Gift of the Prudden Family.  COS-SH40.
  2. Men’s black leather shoes with square toes and brown shoe laces. c. 1810-1850.  Gift of Robert Hurley.  COS-SH31.
  3. Women’s wooden clog, or patten, with velvet strap and pointed toe.  “Willard” written on bottom.  c. 1700-1780.  COS-SH46.  Susan Barker Willard Bequest.
  4. Brown leather man’s shoe, c. 1750, well worn, found behind the chimney at 25 Ship St., which was built in 1753 by Jonathan Churchill.

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The pattens on the right side in the last picture deserve brief additional mention.  In days when streets were unpaved and a woman’s dress fell all the way to the ground, these wood or metal platforms lifted her feet and clothing above the muck.

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All About Pipes

Among the many accessions made possible through the generosity of the Gay family is a collection of clay pipes and fragments, carefully sorted and well documented by Ebenezer Gay. Many were dug up during gardening or, in one case, when some foundation work was done on their former home on North Street.

While it’s a humble-looking collection at first glance, particularly since most of the pieces in it are just that—pieces—pipe collections like this can serve as a window into a fascinating corner of both archaeology and social history.

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Pipes and stems found at the Gay House on North Street in Hingham

Clay pipes are a frequent archaeological find. They were batch-manufactured by craftsmen with simple tools, used all over the colonies and later the country, easily broken and then, usually, cast aside. The fragments left behind, and the much rarer pipes found intact, can give us clues about the world they came from. The length or thickness of a pipe’s stem, or the size of its bowl, can be used to determine its age, and a knowledgeable observer might use that information to help roughly date objects found with the pipe  A pipe might give more specific information than that, as well:  several of the ones in the North Street collection feature maker’s marks. The names “Murray” and “McDougall” each pop up more than once.

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A detail from Eben Gay’s notes on his pipe collection.  Gay was the curator of scientific instruments at Harvard; thus his wonderfully detailed notes. 

While tobacco is, of course, a New World plant and tobacco smoking something Europeans learned on this side of the ocean, the tradition of clay pipe making and smoking reached New England from Old England, where clay pipe makers’ guilds formed in the 17th century. Pipes much like the ones found all over the original colonies are also found at the sites of battles that took place during the English Civil War in the 1640s. The pipes the Gays found at North Street are certainly newer than this, and indeed clay pipes continued to be used through the 19th century. However, they newer ones, too, attest to the clay pipe industry’s British heritage. Several of the stems in the collection, along with or instead of maker’s marks, are stamped with their place of origin: Glasgow, Scotland.

While our collection of pipes is resolutely plain, extending in a few cases to some raised decoration on the pipe bowls, decorative pipes became quite an industry in the 19th century. Pipes were made with bowls shaped like animals, ships, people, or anything under the sun. Decorated pipes were used for advertisement, political commentary and commemoration of events. This connection to the events of the day is not unexpected. While smoked primarily (though not exclusively!) by men, pipes were smoked by those of essentially all social positions and in all sorts of environments: in taverns, on the job, or quietly at home. All things considered, it’s unsurprising that such a ubiquitous type of object should have left so many – and to the history enthusiast, such welcome— examples of itself behind.

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Umbrella Town?

Hingham’s 19th century woodenware and cordage industries get most of the attention, but did you know that our town also made umbrellas and parasols?  By 1818, an umbrella factory was already in operation on South Street; its owner, Benjamin S. Williams, incorporated the Hingham Umbrella Manufacturing Company in 1825.

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Umbrella found in Edward Cazneau’s home. John P. Richardson Collection

Edward Cazneau succeeded Williams as proprietor of the umbrella factory in 1828.  According to the 1893 History of the Town of Hingham, Cazneau announced in an inaugural advertisement in the Hingham Gazette that “all Umbrellas or Parasols sold here by retail will be kept in repair twelve months, gratis.”

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Edward Cazneau, 1803-1868

The late John P. Richardson recovered several umbrellas from the attic of what had been Edward Cazneau’s home.  A note that he attached to the umbrella frame in the photo above reads, “Found in the attic of the Cazneau House on the east corner of South and Hersey St. Hingham, Mass. I, John P. Richardson recovered several umbrellas from this attic. Cazneau owned an umbrella factory at Hobarts Bridge, North St.”

By 1837, the Hingham Umbrella Manufacturing Ccmpany had 75 employees (20 men and 55 women) and, that year, it made and sold over 18,000 umbrellas. This success was not lasting, however; the umbrella factory closed five years later, in 1842.

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Signs of “nature’s god” at the Ebenezer Gay house

When a local developer purchased the Rev. Ebenezer Gay (1696-1787) house at 89 North Street, local historian John P. Richardson participated in some pre-construction historical investigations.  These painted panels from the Gay house, later installed in the 1690 Old Fort House which Mr. Richardson owned and occupied, are now part of the John P. Richardson Collection at the Hingham Historical Society.

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Wall Fragment from the Ebenezer Gay House.   John P. Richardson Collection, Hingham Historical Society.

The first wall fragment is made of a plaster and lath surface attached to heavy vertical boards, which are in turn attached to two more modern boards horizontally laid.  The decorative side is painted a dirty off-white base with a meandering vine ad flower motif that originates out of a basket or planter decorated in a cross hatch pattern with dots in each diamond of the crosshatch.  The basket rests on a hilly green stylized landscape. The vine bears large, stylized acanthus-type leaves and flowers of varying shapes in red and blue. Five hand-cut nails protrude from the wall—two at the far left, one at the top center, one at the upper right, one at mid-right.

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Wall Fragment from the Ebenezer Gay House. John P. Richardson Collection, Hingham Historical Society.

The second decoratively painted wall fragment consists of two layers of plaster and lath encasing two heavy vertical boards. The plaster side is painted with at least 2 layers of paint, the topmost having been added by a 20th century Gay family member seeking to restore the design.  The original background was green, while the background of the current surface layer is a dirty tan color.

A meandering vine motif climbs the panel, with the vine bearing red tulip-shaped blue lily-shaped flowers.  At right is a narrow border set off by a dark brown line.  Within the border the flower and vine motif repeats in a narrower scale. To the right of the border is an unfinished area of white plaster with two maroon colored squares of paint laid out in a windowpane pattern.

In his book, The Benevolent Deity: Ebenezer Gay and the Rise of Rational Religion in New England, author Robert J. Wilson III described the Gay house at it looked during the years that Ebenezer lived there with his wife, Jerusha (Bradford) Gay and their ten children:

The house was a 2-1/2 story, rectangular, pitched-roof affair, somewhat large for the period, but not ostentatiously so.  Though it was painted a rather austere blue-gray on the outside, the interior was lively and colorful.  Someone (Jerusha?) adorned the cream colored walls of the family sitting room with a free hand vine design, very like eighteenth-century crewelwork.  The woodwork, fireplace wall, and the wainscott (added later) were all painted a light green.  The whole effect suggested that nature’s god in all his vibrancy was very much alive in the Gay house.