Category Archives: history

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Dr. Robert Thaxter–Dedicated Physician and Champion of the Poor

Dr. Robert Thaxter was born in Hingham on October 21, 1776, only months after the 13 American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. This was of course a year symbolic of strength, resilience and change, and the same can be said of Dr. Thaxter, who possessed this type of fortitude and a commitment to helping others that one day would claim his life.

Tranquility Lodge, 137 Main Street, Hingham

Likely born in his grandparents’ house at 21 Lincoln Street (now known as the Hingham Historical Society’s Old Ordinary), Robert Thaxter grew up at 137 Main Street in Hingham, a lovely home once called “Tranquility Lodge,” sitting just down aways on Main Street from Hingham’s 1681 Old Ship Church Meeting House.  

He graduated from Harvard College in 1798 and attended the highly selective private cadaver lectures in Anatomy and Surgery offered by the famous surgeon Dr. John Warren (1753-1815), who would go on to be a founder of Harvard Medical School. Dr. Robert Thaxter’s original admission ticket to Dr. Warren’s class is seen below.  Robert soon joined the Massachusetts Medical Society and in 1824 delivered that body’s annual oration, titled A Dissertation on the Excessive Use of Ardent Spirits.

Robert continued a family tradition as a highly respected medical doctor. He was mentored by and practiced with his father, Dr. Thomas Thaxter, in the study of medicine and surgery in Hingham. Dr. Thomas Thaxter was of deep Hingham roots, as “the family of Thaxters were among the early settlers of that town.” (The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol, XLVI., Wednesday, May 19, 1852. No.16 pg. 309)

Dr. Robert Thaxter kept detailed records of his patients. His medical diary is a treasure that the Hingham Historical Society holds in its archives. He had a unique writing style and in one journal entry describes the travels of a critically ill man who journeyed from northern Maine for medical care.

This was a demanding trip in the 19th century even for a healthy person let alone one with a critical illness. But Dr. Thaxter was a physician of both the rich and the poor and a healer with an extensive reputation as a doctor both near and far. The doctor’s notes reflect his high level of compassion for this distressed patient. His concise description of the patient’s clinical findings also shows a modernist sensibility in terms of his ability to describe clinical findings with a degree of precision. At that time, treating patients was limited by the lack of today’s medicines such as antibiotics which may have cured this patient. Dr. Thaxter did a remarkable job taking care of patients with the limited pharmacopoeia available at that time. Dr. Thaxter’s 1810 entry regarding his examination of this sick patient is as follows.

Jeremiah Ferino: Jeremiah, 28, a thin habit, (and) narrow chest, had been unwell several weeks with the ordinary symptoms of a cold an occasional haemophysis, when he exhaled himself to fatigue (and) … (and) embarked in that condition at Machias for Portland.

His complaints all increased notwithstanding which on his arrival at Portland he took stage for Boston. At Portsmouth he was stopped one day by epistaxis then … his journey to Boston, where he arrived April 14th, 1810.

That night he was unable to lie down in consequence of laborious respiration. The next day he came to Dorchester worn down by fatigue (and) disease. He was still unable to lie in a horizontal position. His respiration was so very difficult that he was obliged to sit leaning forward. He coughed very frequently (and) expectorated mucous mixed with very (fluid) blood.

To have medicines on hand as a doctor, his father, Dr. Thomas Thaxter was also proprietor of a pharmacy in Hingham, which Robert’s maiden aunt, Abigail Thaxter, ran.  (History of the Town of Hingham, 1893; Vol II, page 323; “Native and Resident Physicians” by George Lincoln.)  The Thaxter pharmacy would have had a wealth of compounds, elixirs, herbs, and other medicinal items that the young Robert Thaxter could access to treat and cure ailments of that time. Dr. Robert Thaxter’s beautiful wooden medicine chest is also in the collection of the Hingham Historical Society. His medicine chest contains thirteen mold blown glass bottles, many of them with original paper labels. The bottles are labeled with interesting ingredients such as maraschino, strawberry syrup, ginger, parfait amour, rose water, spirit of camphor, orange, oil of cinnamon, oil of cloves, and aromatic elixir. Today, most of these items would be found in our kitchen spice rack rather than our medicine cabinet.

13 mold blown glass vials
Dr. Robert Thaxter’s medicine chest

Once trained, Robert Thaxter stayed in Hingham side by side with his father and continued the medical practice. They were both driven and ambitious men but by 1809, Dr. Robert Thaxter needed his independence. He moved his medical practice to Dorchester. Not surprisingly, he was “immediately received into popular confidence which he retained until his death.” (The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol, XLVI., Wednesday, May 19, 1852. No.16 pg.309). Dr. Thaxter was married to his love of medicine and never took a wife. Once settled in Dorchester, he posted the following advertisement in the July 22, 1809 Columbian Centinel Newspaper:

NOTICE: Doctor Robert Thaxter informs the Inhabitants of Dorchester that he has taken lodgings at the residence of Mr. William Richards, where he will be ready at all times to attend to his profession. He will inoculate with kine Pox, free of expense, all persons who feel themselves unable to pay.

(History of the Town of Hingham, 1893; Vol II, page 324. “Native and Resident Physicians” by George Lincoln.)

At that time, Boston was a homogeneous and in many ways provincial society, with a deeply rooted regard for its protestant English past.  Irish immigrants now flooded into Boston hoping for a second chance in life. These Catholic newcomers, though, were seen as a threat to the norms of Boston society. Dr. Thaxter’s decision to relocate his practice to Dorchester was a bold move. He might have damaged his reputation as a doctor by leaving, but he didn’t and still returned to the area to perform surgeries (The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol, XLVI., Wednesday, May 19, 1852. No.16 pg.309).

Once settled in Dorchester his reputation took off. Dr. Thaxter’s diligence, careful medical observation, and never-ending dedication to the sick expanded his medical practice to neighboring areas. As time went on, he also was drawn to the Irish poor now arriving in Dorchester. “The Irish population gathered more thickly about him . . . .  By night and by day, he was at their beck,” (The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol, XLVI., Wednesday, May 19, 1852. No.16 pg.312)

Dr. Thaxter’s commitment as a doctor to serving the needy, poor, and especially, those from Ireland fleeing the potato famine is commendable—then and now. Those emigrating by what were later called “coffin ships” from Ireland carried poor passengers in steerage where there was a lack of food, plenty of filth and diseases running rampant such as typhus. (As described in a Hingham Historical Society lecture, “The Irish Riviera and Hingham’s Irish 1850-1950,” available for viewing here, typhus and other infectious diseases were killers without our present-day antibiotics.

Dr. Thaxter met his end doing what he believed in. “He fell a martyr to the ship fever (typhus fever), caught in attending an Irish family, just from on board ship.” (Obituary, Boston Daily Evening Transcript 11 Feb 1852).  It was said that “Dr. Thaxter never stopped helping the Irish.” (Ibid.) He had a charitably rich and spiritual life to the end. Dr. Thaxter died February 9th, 1852. He was 75 years old. (History of the Town of Hingham, 1893; Vol II, page 324; “Native and Resident Physicians” by George Lincoln.)

To learn more about the Thaxter family and its place in local and American history, please see our post One if By Land, Two If By Sea on this blog.  You might also look at the recent publication, Revolutionary War Patriots of Hingham, by Ellen Miller and Susan Wetzel, Dec 26, 2023, which details the town’s Patriots, including quite a few from the Thaxter family who left their mark in history.

Abigail (Smith) Thaxter

If you are in Hingham, you also may want to visit Dr. Thaxter’s likely birthplace, the Old Ordinary. There you can see a portrait of Dr. Robert Thaxter’s grandmother, Abigail Smith Thaxter, hanging in the parlor.

Dr. Robert Thaxter’s spirit carries on today in public service and health. This tradition of outreach and assistance to those most disadvantaged continues in the Boston area such as the work of the late Dr. Paul Farmer and the continuing work of Partners in Health, and Dr. Jim O’Connell and Boston Health Care for the Homeless, as well as numerous others dedicating their lives to helping those in need.

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October 1774: Hingham Raises a Liberty Pole

“Raising the liberty pole,” 1776 / painted by F.A. Chapman ; engraved by John C. McRae, N.Y. (Library of Congress)

1774 was a big year for young Samuel Gardner of South Hingham.  Over the course of that year, he made five short notations in what had once been his father’s diary:  that he was married on January 6; that he commenced “keeping house” on April 27; that his father, Samuel Gardner, Sr., died on November 5; and that his first child, also named Samuel, was born the following day, November 6.  The fifth entry, made on October 16, 1774, was, “Liberty pool [sic] raised.”  To have merited an entry along with the other four milestones means this, too, was an important event in Samuel’s life. 

It has long been reported that a liberty pole was raised in South Hingham.  The hill running up Main Street from Glad Tidings Plan to the vicinity of what is now South School was called Liberty Pole Hill in the 19th century, and the name was adopted for a residential subdivision, bounded by Main Street, Cushing Street, and Old County Road, that was constructed in the 1950s and 1960s.  But until we located a transcription of Samuel Gardner’s diary in the papers of local historical Julian Loring, we had no written confirmation of or information about Hingham’s liberty pole.   

Liberty Pole in the Fields (New York). 1770 cartoon engraved by P. E. du Simitiere. (Library Company of Philadelphia)

What is a liberty pole anyway?  Liberty poles erected in colonial towns in the years running up to the American Revolution were symbols of dissent from Great Britain.  They were typically tall wooden masts or poles with a red flag or cap on top and often served as the sites of meetings or demonstrations.  The reference was classical, recalling stories of a pole topped with a freedman’s cap erected after Julius Caesar’s assassination as a symbol of the Romans’ freedom tyranny.  (Boston initially had a Liberty Tree, where in 1765 the Sons of Liberty hanged Andrew Oliver in effigy to protest the Stamp Act, though after British soldiers chopped it down during their occupation of Boston, it was replaced with a liberty pole.) 

Liberty poles were raised across New England in the 1760s and 1770s, sometimes in protest (for instance, of the Stamp Act or the Boston Port Act) and sometimes in celebration (for instance, the Stamp Act’s repeal  or the opening of the First Continental Congress). 

The timing of Hingham’s liberty pole–raised on October 16, 1774–is no surprise.  In May 1774, Parliament enacted the Boston Port Act, closing Boston Harbor, and other of the so-called Intolerable Acts as retribution for the Boston Tea Party.  Boston’s Town Meeting issued a call for a trade embargo against Great Britain and by mid-summer 1774, Hingham’s Town Meeting had formed a committee to draft a non-importation covenant, or agreement in solidarity with Boston to boycott goods from Great Britain and the West Indies.  On August 17, Town Meeting approved the draft covenant but stayed its execution pending action by the First Continental Congress, which had convened on September 5.  (By late October, Town Meeting had received and adopted the articles of the Continental Association, a non-importation, non-exportation, and non-consumption agreement against British merchants and goods, in the hopes that economic pressure might encourage Parliament to address colonial grievances.) 

On September 21, 1774, the Town heard a report of the Suffolk County Committees of Correspondence and voted its agreement with that body’s resolves, later called the “Suffolk Resolves.”  These included boycotting British goods, defying the Intolerable Acts, refusing to pay taxes, and urging the towns to raise and train militias of their own people.  Consistent with those resolves, at the same meeting, Hingham voted to recommend “to the officers of the Militia to assemble their men once in the week and Instruct them in the art of War and the Men be provided with Arms and Ammunition According to Law.” 

Enoch Whiton House, 1083 Main Street (Hingham Historical Society)

Hingham had several militia companies, roughly organized by geography.  Samuel Gardner belonged to the company under the command of Captain Enoch Whiton, a neighbor of his on Liberty Plain. (Captain Whiton’s house still stands at 1083 Main Street; as do those of Samuel Gardner, Sr., and Jr., at 1035 and 1006 Main Street, respectively.  It is remembered that Captain Whiton’s company trained in the vicinity of what is now the Marchesiani Farmlands at 1030 Main Street–right across the road from the home of Samuel Gardner, Sr. 

The militia men were undoubtedly instrumental in the raising of a liberty pole not far north of their training grounds on October 16, 1774.  Their revolutionary activity was only beginning; Captain Whiton’s company mustered and marched on April 19, 1775, when word of Lexington arrived in Hingham.  

History of the Town of Hingham, vol. I, pt. 2 (1893)

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One If By Land; Two If By Sea: the Hingham Connection

Most people are aware of Paul Revere’s midnight ride in April 1775 due to the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the hanging of two lanterns in the Old North Church steeple preceding his journey.  We at the Hingham Historical Society were delighted to learn that this event has a Hingham connection.

Thaxter Mansion, North Street, Hingham

One of the men responsible for hanging the two lanterns was John Pulling, Jr. a vestryman of Old North and a friend of Paul Revere. John was born in 1737 in Boston and was a trader by occupation. He married his first wife, Annis Lee, in Manchester in 1768. They had two children, a daughter and son both named for their parents.

Abigail (Smith) Thaxter

John’s wife Annis died in 1771. This is where the Hingham connection comes in. John married his second wife, Sarah Thaxter McBean (17461843) in January 1773. She was the daughter of Major Samuel Thaxter (1723-1771) of Hingham, a trader and veteran of the French and Indian War, and Abigail Smith (1722-1807), daughter of Samuel and Bethia (Chipman) Smith of Sandwich. Sarah grew up in the Thaxter mansion on North Street, the site of today’s St. Paul’s Church. A portrait of Sarah’s mother, Abigail Smith hangs in our Old Ordinary museum.

Pulling Tablet, Old North Church

This was Sarah’s second marriage as well. She was the widow of Duncan McBean, a West Indies planter from a family of Scottish traders. The McBeans had no surviving children. Records show that Sarah and John Pulling had three known children: Sarah (1773), Martha (ca 1780) and Richard (bef. 1782). During the Revolutionary War John served as a Captain and Commander of Ordinance Stores. On April 19 when he heard he was wanted by the British for questioning in his role aiding Revere, he, Sarah and their children fled Boston in a fishing boat, making their way to Hull. This event is memorialized on a tablet on the Old North Church. When they returned to the North End of Boston after the British evacuated in March 1776, they found their house ransacked and all their property gone. 

121-123 Main Street, Hingham

After John’s death in 1787 Sarah and her family (including the two children from John’s first marriage) returned to Hingham, where they lived until Sarah married for the third time to Thomas Reed of Abington in 1793. It is unknown where in Hingham Sarah and the children lived during that five-year period as Sarah’s childhood home, the Thaxter Mansion had been sold to Elisha Leavitt, Jr. in 1770. Perhaps Sarah and the children lived with

Parlor at 137 Main Street, Hingham

one of her younger brothers who remained in Hingham? Dr. Thomas Thaxter lived at 121 Main Street and Henry Thaxter lived at 137 Main Street. Both houses still stand today. After marrying Thomas Reed, Sarah resided in Abington until her death in 1843 at age 97.
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Nature vs. Nurture: Consider the Spragues, Part 3

In this final part of my blog about the Sprague family, I’ll highlight descendants of Ralph Sprague, the oldest of the three brothers who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628.

In the books written about Ralph Sprague and his family, Ralph is most highly regarded for his service to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In The Founding of Charlestown by the Spragues, A Glimpse of the Beginning of the Massachusetts Bay Settlement (1910), written by Henry H. Sprague, the author quotes the earlier historian Richard Frothingham, Jr., who wrote of Ralph Sprague in The History of Charlestown (1845):

He was a prominent and valuable citizen – active in promoting the colony.

The Spragues of Malden, Massachusetts (Hingham Historical Society archives)

And in The Spragues of Malden, Massachusetts, by George Walter Chamberlain, this is written about Ralph’s contributions:

Ralph Sprague served as a Deputy to the General Court from Charlestown, then including Everett, Malden, Melrose, Stoneham and Somerville, etc., in at least sixteen sessions and served on important committees many times. The fact that Mr. Sprague served with the most distinguished men of the Massachusetts Bay Colony so long indicates that he was a man of sound judgment and remarkable ability. His influence in the Colony was great.

While Ralph first built a home for his family in Charlestown, he was later given more land:

In 1638 the Town of Charlestown made a record of twelve lots of land which were granted to him. Five of these lots were on Mystic Side, out of which the town of Malden was formed in 1649.

Within a decade, Ralph Sprague was helping to establish the Town of Malden.

On 1 Jan. 1648/9, Lt. Ralph Sprague and nine other freemen . . .  petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony, for a separation from Charlestown, and Misticke side became a distinct town of the name Maulden, 11 May 1649.

This post is intended to focus on historically prominent descendants of Ralph Sprague of Charlestown and Malden who were 19th and 20th century scientists, inventors, and industrialists. But permit me a diversion first to highlight some of Ralph’s descendants who made their mark during their time, though they are less remembered now:

Dr. John C. Sprague (1754-1803) of Malden, a descendant of Ralph’s son John Sprague, did military service as a surgeon, was twice captured by the British, and was imprisoned for a time in Ireland. After the War for Independence, he became a schoolteacher and also was involved in Malden Town government, serving on a wide range of Committees. At a special Town Meeting in 1797, Dr. Sprague was elected both to a committee on education and to a committee to raise money for the encouragement of singing. In noting this specific service, the author of The Spragues of Malden adds: “Thus was Dr. Sprague identified with the best things of his native town in the reconstructive period following the Revolutionary War.”

Phineas Sprague (1777-1869) of Malden—the 5th in a line of men named Phineas descended from Ralph’s son John, was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts in 1820, at which he spoke on the Declaration of Rights, saying: “It is tyranny in the highest degree to compel a man to worship in a manner contrary to the dictates of his conscience. Religion is an affair between God and our own souls.”

Phineas’ liberal views regarding religion, like those we in Hingham associate with the minister at First Parish, Ebenezer Gay (1696-1787) in the early days of what was first known as the Arminian movement, eventually led Phineas to withdraw from First Parish of Malden. Phineas later would be involved in establishing a Universalist church in Malden.

Dr. John’s son, John Sprague (1781-1852) of Malden, like his cousin Phineas, espoused liberal views of religion at a time when religious congregations in New England were dividing due to differing theological views during what would be known in Protestantism as the Great Awakening, and then due to differing political views: Federalism vs. States Rights. (In Hingham, these political divisions led to the founding of New North Church by a group of Federalist-leaning residents including Major General Benjamin Lincoln.)

John was an original member of the First Baptist Church of Malden but later found himself unwelcome in the church due to his Arminian views vs. the Calvinist doctrines of the minister at the time. In 1812, John Sprague wrote and self-published a pamphlet that caused quite a stir: The History of Wars and Fightings (Without Shedding of Blood) in the Baptist Church in Malden. A subtitle reads “Together with Some Poetry, Never Before Published.”

On April 12, 1812, the members of the Baptist church based his exclusion from the congregation on the publication of this book. While John Sprague was a shoemaker by trade, he enjoyed writing poetry—and a few of his humorous poems are included in the The Spragues of Malden. 

John was selected by the town of Malden for many committees, among them: the Bunker Hill Monument Association formed to raise money for the monument’s construction, and the committee formed by the town in 1844 to choose the best path through Malden for what was then called the Maine Railroad.  I think many of those who serve on Town Committees in Hingham today would have enjoyed the company of shoemaker John Sprague of Malden.

Horatio Sprague Sr. (1784-1848), a descendant of Ralph’s son John, was born in Boston, but most associated with Gibraltar, where he permanently resided from 1815 until his death. Horatio was a merchant and ship owner in Gibraltar, a British territory on the tip of the Iberian Peninsula, when he was chosen to be U.S. Consul there in 1832.  His duties, largely tied to facilitating commerce, were not onerous, but his health declined.

His son, Horatio Jones Sprague Jr. (1823-1901), who was born in Gibraltar and spoke several languages, was appointed after his father’s death as U.S. Consul in Gibraltar and served in that post for 53 years. His consular workload was greater than his father’s due to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1870, and two wars that had an impact during his tenure: the Civil War in the U.S. (1861-65) and the Spanish-American War (1898.) Horatio Sprague Jr. also broadened the business portfolio he’d developed with his father when he became an importer of tobacco to Gibraltar. Horatio died in 1901, and would be succeeded as U.S. Consul by his son, Richard Sprague (1871-1934.) 

Details about this now-unusual Sprague diplomacy dynasty is on this website, serving fans of James Joyce. Why would such a James Joyce website include information about the Spragues of Gibraltar? I was surprised to learn that James Joyce’s famous work Ulysses (first serialized beginning in 1918, then published as a book in 1922) has a Horatio Sprague Jr. reference, as “old Sprague the consul”:

. . . when general Ulysses Grant whoever he was or did supposed to be some great fellow landed off the ship and old Sprague the consul that was there from before the flood dressed up poor man and he in mourning for the son.

While James Joyce’s Ulysses is a work of fiction, this reference to Ulysses Grant visiting Gibraltar is based on historic fact. The then former president, Ulysses Grant visited Gibraltar as part of a world tour in 1878, when the U.S. Consul there was Horatio Jones Sprague, Jr.

Now, on to those descendants of Ralph Sprague who made lasting contributions to science, innovation, and industry in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Charles H. Sprague (1827-1904) of Malden descended from Ralph’s son Phineas (1637-1690), who was among the Malden men who fought in King Philip’s War.

Charles served his local community as a member of the Malden City Council, following in the public service tradition of many Spragues over the centuries. And like other notable Spragues, Charles was a scientist as well as a prominent business leader.

In 1849, Charles Sprague was appointed by the United States Government to the editorial staff of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, where he reported on astronomical observations. He held this position for fifteen years. American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac was published, under the authority of the Secretary of the Navy, from 1855 to 1980, containing information necessary for astronomers, surveyors, and navigators.  The Preface tothe 1855 edition reports “the preparation of this work was begun in the latter part of the year 1849, in accordance with an act of Congress, approved on the 3d of March of that year.” The publication continues now as The Nautical Almanac.

Charles went on, in 1870, to establish the Charles H. Sprague Company, a privately-held power company focused on the market for coal during the early part of the industrial age. During World War I, the company became the major supplier of coal to America’s European allies. To facilitate the shipment of coal across the Atlantic, he also founded the Sprague Steamship Company which operated a large fleet of vessels serving many company-owned terminals.

Charles’ son and Malden native Phineas Warren Sprague (1860-1943) had been a partner of what had become C.H. Sprague & Son, and after his father’s death he assumed full control of the business. The company would later expand into oil and be renamed Sprague Energy. In 1942, the U.S. Government selected Sprague Energy to manage its wartime coal shipment program.

Sprague Energy, Quincy, Mass.

Charles’ grandson, Phineas Sprague Jr. (1901-1977) joined company management after World War II service in the Navy, from which he retired as a Lieutenant Commander. While the family sold its remaining interests in the company in 1970, the Sprague Energy brand is still in use, and has expanded into natural gas—including here on the South Shore, where the Sprague Energy brand is emblazoned at an oil terminal on Southern Artery along the Town River in Quincy, MA.

Frank Julian Sprague (1857-1934), another descendant from Ralph’s son John, was born in Milford, CT., was raised in North Adams, MA by an aunt and other relatives after his mother’s death when he was 9 years old. As a boy, Sprague became fascinated by the textile mills and related manufacturing operations in North Adams. He did quite well in school and went on to Annapolis where he studied electrical engineering. He worked briefly with Thomas Edison, but his major contributions came after he began working on his own inventions, for the electric motor, electric railways and electric elevators. His patented inventions made the electric streetcar a reliable means of transit for emerging “streetcar suburbs.” I enjoyed reading the biography: Frank Julian Sprague, by William D. Middleton, MD., published by Indiana University Press in 2009 (cover shown here), which chronicles his life as well as his many inventions.

Frank lived with his family in New York City for much of his life. As a graduate of the Naval Academy and former Naval Officer, Frank was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Robert (1900-1991) and Julian (1903-1960) Sprague, sons of Frank Julian Sprague, became the co-founders, in 1926, of one of the largest electric components companies of its time. The Sprague Specialties Company, founded by the brothers in Quincy, MA, moved to North Adams, MA in 1930.  They chose North Adams due to their father’s fondness for his boyhood there. In 1942 the company changed its name to the Sprague Electric Company.

The company expanded in 1942—buying the factory buildings that previously housed the Arnold Print Works textile firm. The 16 acres of grounds on the Hoosic River in North Adams, Massachusetts, encompass a vast complex of 19th-century mill buildings and occupy nearly one-third of the city’s downtown business district. This was the home of Sprague Electric Company until 1985. At its peak, Sprague Electric was one of the largest electronic component manufacturers in the world.

John Louis Sprague, Sr. (1930-2021), Robert’s son, would be the last Sprague to head the Sprague Electric Company.  John Sprague was a chemist who joined the company soon after completing his PhD at Stanford in the late 1950s. He would spend 11 years as president of Sprague Electric. John’s son, John Sprague Jr., wrote a blog, available at www.spraguelegacy.com about his dad’s role with the company. The website also chronicles the history of the Sprague Electric Company.

The Sprague Electric Company was sold in 1976. John Sprague was still president (under the new ownership) in 1984 and 1985 when company owner Penn Central moved the company’s international headquarters from the Berkshires to Lexington and eliminated 700 Sprague jobs in North Adams.  That move, the Berkshire Eagle later reported, “left a legacy of bitterness in the city,” even though Sprague didn’t completely leave North Adams until the early 1990s.

Innovation and the Arts

(Photo courtesy of MassMoCA.org)

Given the history of this family in both the arts and sciences, it seems so appropriate that what was the Sprague factory complex in North Adams has become Mass MOCA—an art museum, known for its embrace of innovation across the visual arts and, in more recent history, performing arts as well.

After years of planning, fund-raising and some additional construction on the former factory site, MASS MoCA celebrated its opening in 1999, as the center’s website says: “marking the site’s launch into its third century of production, and the continuation of a long history of innovation and experimentation.”

That “long history of innovation and experimentation” certainly applies to the contributions over generations of the creative Sprague family as well. Perhaps both nature and nurture played a role. An impressive legacy.

SOURCES not otherwise referenced:

Portraits of John, Charles H., and Phineas W. Sprague from Historic Homes and Places and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relation to the Families of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, vol. III (Cutter, ed., 1908)

Obituaries of Charles H. Sprague published in the Boston Daily Globe, July 1, 1904; and the Springfield Republican (Massachusetts) June 30, 1904.

The History of Malden, Massachusetts 1633-1785

Malden Past and Present: 1649-1899, pub. May, 1899.

The website www.spragueenergy.com

Special thanks to my friend Paula Bagger who provided many of the images of items from the Hingham Historical Society archives–for part 2 of this blog in particular.

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Nature vs. Nurture: Consider the Spragues, Part 2

A rare photo of a Revolutionary War veteran [courtesy of findagrave.com]

William Sprague’s line of the family achieved prominence in the arts—from botanical illustration to poetry.

In this “Rev 250” period of commemoration of the War for Independence, I need to first mention that William’s great-great grandson, Samuel Sprague, born in Hingham in 1753, was a Revolutionary War Patriot who also participated in the Boston Tea Party, as discussed in a 2020 post on this blog.  Samuel’s pension states that he crossed the Delaware with George Washington!  (That tidbit is courtesy of the recently published book, Revolutionary War Patriots of Hingham, Ellen Stine Miller & Susan Garrett Wetzel, 2024, copies of which are available from the Hingham Historical Society.

Portrait of Charles Sprague, the “Banker Poet,” by Matthew Sprague (Hingham Historical Society)

Charles Sprague (1791-1875) —Samuel’s son, Charles, was born in Boston, where his father Samuel earlier had relocated as an apprentice mason.  Charles had success both in the banking business and as a poet and became well known as the “Banker Poet of Boston.” He is considered one of America’s earliest native-born poets. Some of his poems suggest an affinity for transcendentalism, a movement associated with Charles’ contemporaries Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller, all of Massachusetts. One example of Charles’ poetry can be read here.

This portrait of Charles hangs in the hallway of the Hingham Historical Society’s General Benjamin Lincoln House (Charles’ granddaughter Helen Amelia Sprague married Lauriston Scaife, a Lincoln descendant).  A modern notation on the back of the canvas attributes the painting to “Matthew Sprague”–another talented Sprague?

Charles James Sprague (1823-1903), like his father, was a banker and a poet but he left his mark in the field of botany.  His portrait,  looking very much like a respectable banker, also hangs in the Benjamin Lincoln House.  It was painted by his nephew, Charles Sprague Pearce, a well-known painter of the 19th century.

Portrait of Charles James Sprague by Charles Sprague Pearce (Hingham Historical Society)

Charles James Sprague was known for his study and illustrations of lichens. More info about the Sprague Herbarium of Fungi can be found here.

Based on his scientific and literary contributions, Charles James Sprague was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1856.

Hosea Sprague (1779-1843) — A grandson of Isaac Sprague, Sr. (1709-1789) another Revolutionary War Patriot of Hingham, Hosea first trained as a printer in Boston. He then returned to Hingham where he worked as a bookseller and became known as a wood engraver.

A few of his engravings from the Hingham Historical Society archives are shown here.

Hosea also was the compiler of The Genealogy of the Spragues in Hingham, published in 1828, an excerpt from which is show here.    The Hingham Library also has an original edition in its Sprague family archive. This genealogy is notable as it was published well-before the popularity of genealogies in the late 19th/early 20th century, following the 1876 U.S. centennial and the 1890 launch of the Daughters of the American Revolution, when charting colonial ancestry became quite popular.

In the 1840s, Hosea published several issues of a periodical of his observations about life, history, and weather: “Hosea Sprague’s Chronicle.” In an October 18, 1888, feature story, published in the Hingham Journal, Hingham’s Luther Stephenson (a Civil War general, who had both maternal and paternal Sprague grandmothers) wrote about his cousin Hosea:  “He had great respect for the first settlers of Hingham, and spent much time in deciphering and copying in his bold hand the early records of the town…”

Isaac Sprague (1811-1895)—A great grandson of Isaac the Revolutionary War Patriot, Isaac was born in Hingham. He became an Artist Assistant to the well-known illustrator John James Audubon, joining Audubon’s expedition to Montana in 1843. Isaac then began his successful career in Cambridge as a botanical illustrator, working with influential botanist Asa Gray and others. In recognition of Isaac’s Hingham roots, the Hingham Heritage Museum treasures its collection of several of Isaac’s beautiful artworks and the Society sponsored an exhibit of his work in 2016.

Here are some of the prints in our collection:

Isaac’s work has been the subject of two posts on this blog, —in 2016 and 2017:

In addition to poets and artists, the William Sprague line includes skilled craftsmen known as coopers—artisans in woodenware-making including boxes, buckets, and wooden toys, during the long period when Hingham was known to many as “Bucket Town.” This history is documented and beautifully illustrated in the book Bucket Town, Woodenware and Wooden Toys of Hingham, Massachusetts, 1635-1945, written by Derin T. Bray and published by the town’s Hingham Historic Commission in 2014.

In 2014-15, Old Sturbridge Village featured an exhibit titled “Bucket Town: Four Centuries of Toy-Making and Coopering in Hingham.” The Hingham Heritage Museum’s inaugural exhibition in 2017 was Boxes, Buckets, and Toys: the Craftsmen of Hingham.”

Among the Hingham Sprague family members who were coopers/ woodenware makers are:

  • Isaac Sprague, Sr. (1709-1789), the Revolutionary War Patriot, by trade a set-work (or bucket/barrel making) cooper; his son Isaac (1743-1800) also a set-work cooper; and Isaac Sprague, Jr.’s sons Peter (1773-1859) and Isaac (1782-1826) both of whom were box coopers. Peter’s son, Peter (1801-1868) also worked as a box cooper.
  • Amos Sprague (1747-1838) a box cooper; and his son Amos (1774-1830) also a box cooper.
  • Blossom Sprague (1784-1860), a carriage painter who was also an award-winning maker of wooden toys.
  • Reuben Sprague (1785-1852), whose son Reuben O. Sprague (1811-1898) used his woodworking skills as a stair builder with a shop in Boston.
  • Adna Sprague (1790-1860) a box cooper who also served in town government as a Selectman.
  • Bela Sprague (1804-1878), a brother of engraver Hosea, a “white cooper,” or maker of buckets, pails, and other household containers. Bela’s work is featured in the Bucket Town book. We have some examples of Bela’s work in our Hingham Historical Society collection, including this bail-handled pail and a small pail with a handle, known as a “piggin.”
  • Samuel Sprague (1809-1882), cooper, whose son Samuel (1833-1900) was a stair builder; and
  • Anthony J. Sprague (1855-1921), who ran the ad shown here for his woodenware business in the 1894 Hingham-Hull Directory. One of Anthony J. Sprague’s buckets is this firkin from the Historical Society’s collection.

Women of the 18th-mid 20th century were generally less recognized for their contributions to the arts, but we are fortunate to have examples of the illustrations of Lydia Sprague (1832-1907), a cousin of Isaac, and a daughter of box cooper Adna Sprague. Several examples of Lydia’s artistry are included in Joan Brancale’s two-part post on our blog from 2014:

Also in our collection are some wonderful samplers by Sprague women – created when they were in school.

  • First, this sampler where nature and a structure (perhaps Derby Academy) are prominently featured, embroidered by Mary Sprague (1804-1871.) Mary was a daughter of Peter Sprague and Mary Whiton. She married Elijah Burr in 1828.
  • Next, a genealogical sampler, which tells us in embroidery that the creator is a then 8-year-old Jane Sprague, who stitched it on May 1, 1820. As spelled out in stitches, Jane is a daughter of David Sprague and Mary Leavitt Gardner. Jane (1811-1878) married Thomas Cushing in 1836.

Before concluding this short visit with members of the William Sprague family line, a note about descendants who are an important part of the history of Rhode Island. William’s son William, born in Hingham in 1650, moved to Rhode Island around 1710. His grandson William, born in Cranston in 1795, started
a grist and sawmill in Cranston along the Pocasset River. The next generation built on that foundation, and much wealth was created in the process due to the success of A & W Sprague, which grew to become, for a time, the largest cotton textile manufacturer in the country. Their business success made members of this line quite wealthy and propelled some of the family into politics: two became Governors of Rhode Island in the 19th century. One of these, another William, born in 1830, also became a US Senator, and built an enormous estate in Narragansett, RI in the 1860s, named Canonchet.

Part 3 of this blog will focus on the descendants of Raph Sprague, older brother of Charlestown and Hingham settler William, — and this line’s lasting contributions to science, technology and related businesses.

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Nature vs. Nurture: Consider the Spragues

While doing research for the Hingham Historical Society’s 2023-24 lecture series, Suburbia: The American Dream, I learned of the important contribution of late 19th/early 20th century electrical engineer and inventor Frank Julian Sprague to the electric streetcar—an engine critical to early suburban development in the U.S.  The name Sprague caught my attention.

In his landmark book, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, Kenneth Jackson pointed to the importance of the contributions of Franklin Julian Sprague:

By the turn of the century, half the streetcar systems in the United States were equipped by Sprague, and 90 percent were using his patents.

The Brothers Ralph and William Sprague (Hingham Historical Society archives)

Could this engineer and inventor, born in Connecticut and for most of his life a New Yorker, be part of the same family that produced the 19th century botanical illustrator Isaac Sprague and other notable Sprague family members here in Hingham? I needed to know more.

What my research revealed was a fascinating multi-generational story of an innovative, creative family. I was struck by the significant contributions made to both the arts and sciences by the descendants of the two-family lines–those of Ralph and William Sprague–that began with brothers who were among the original settlers of Charlestown in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The impressive examples of creativity and innovation in these two Sprague lines got me thinking about the influences of both nature and nurture, as well as the close relationship between the creative arts and scientific inquiry and invention. Perhaps the story of this family will get you pondering too.

The Story Begins Along the Wey River in England

Brothers Ralph (1599-1650), Richard (1605-1668) and William Sprague (1609-1675), were sons of Edward Sprague (1576-1614), who operated a fulling mill on the river Wey, in Upwey, located between Dorchester and Weymouth, in the county of Dorset, England. (Edward’s mill, shown here, no longer exists.) After their father’s death, the three brothers joined a party of colonists emigrating for the Mass Bay Company to settle what became Charlestown, Massachusetts. It is unclear if religion was part of the Sprague brothers’ motivation to leave England. They arrived in Salem in 1628, then soon traveled on to Charlestown.

Fulling mills (“fulling” is part of the cleansing and thickening process when making cloth from sheep’s wool) were also common in the New England colonies, and there were three fulling mills in Hingham in 17th and 18th centuries: one on Crooked Meadow River in South Hingham, at what became known as Fulling Mill Pond; one off South Pleasant Street (near present-day Fulling Mill Road); and one at what was known as Beechwoods River or Mill River, flowing northeast from Accord Pond. As detailed in the 1893 History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts, these mills were operated by the Jacob and Cushing families, closely aligned through marriage.

Ralph Sprague emigrated, at 25, with his wife, Joanne Warren, and 4-year-old son John. He had trained as a fuller with his father in England, but apparently took up farming here. He also became a Selectman of Charlestown in 1637 and was elected Representative that same year, serving in both positions for several years. (Source: The History of Charlestown.) Just before Ralph died in 1650, he joined with others to petition successfully with for their own lands on the Mystic River side of Charlestown, later to  be known as Malden.  Ralph and his wife had several children. For generations, Ralph’s descendants lived in and around Charlestown and Malden.

The Spragues of Malden, Massachusetts (Hingham Historical Society archives)

In the early 20th century, two books, both focused on documenting the genealogy, were written about Ralph Sprague’s family line:

  • The Ralph Sprague Genealogy, written by descendant Edward George Sprague and published in 1913, covered 10 generations who had lived by that time.
  • The Spragues of Malden, written by the then-Secretary of the Malden Historical Society, George Walter Chamberlain, M.S., in 1928. A copy of this book, originally “printed for private circulation only” is in the collection of the Hingham Historical Society.

Richard Sprague, 23 at the time they left England, married in Charlestown in 1632. Richard became a merchant and owned a considerable amount of farmland and salt marsh and had shares in a couple of ships. He was a founding member of the church in Charlestown and a Selectman, Overseer of Highways, and Captain of the Military (local militia then.) Richard and his wife Mary Sharp had no children.

William Sprague, just 19 when he emigrated, married in 1635, while still in Charlestown, and moved to Hingham with his wife Millicent Eames 1636.  There they joined others from England who were just one year into founding a town here. William and Millicent would have 11 children, 8 of whom would survive into adulthood. Some descendants stayed in Hingham for generations.

Genealogy of the Spragues in Hingham (Hingham Historical Society archives)

The book Sprague Families in America, written by descendant Warren Vincent Sprague, M.D., and published in 1913, includes a section on the genealogy of William Sprague and his descendants up to that time. The author credits The Ralph Sprague Genealogy, published the same year, for providing valuable family data; he apparently had not seen the earlier Genealogy of Spragues in Hingham, published in 1828 by Hingham’s Hosea Sprague (1779-1843), about whom you’ll learn more in the next part of this blog.

The connection between colonists in Charlestown and the early settlers of Hingham was established at the time of the town’s founding. In the 1827 History of the Town of Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, author Solomon Lincoln, after listing inhabitants who started to arrive in Hingham as early as 1633, noted:

. . . The others settled at Charlestown, and in 1635 removed to this place. . . .  It was in June of that year that Rev. Peter Hobart arrived at Charlestown, and soon after settled in this place.

. . . In 1636, [there arrived] John Beal, senior, Anthony Eames, Thomas Hammond, Joseph Hull, Richard Jones, Nicholas Lobdin, Richard Langer, John Leavitt, Thomas Lincoln, Jr., miller, Thomas Lincoln, cooper, Adam Mott, Thomas Minard, John Parker, George Russell, William Sprague, George Strange, Thomas Underwood, Samuel Ward, Ralph Woodward, John Winchester, William Walker.

Division of Land Plots to Early Settlers (Hingham Public Library History Collection)

The Anthony Eames in this latter group was the father of William Sprague’s wife Millicent, and they would soon be granted adjacent parcels of land for their homes—as shown in the lower right corner of this 19th century plot chart created by local historian George Lincoln in his “Sketch of the Division of Land Plots to the Early Settlers of Hingham.”

From Ralph Sprague, of Charlestown and Malden, and William Sprague, of Charlestown and Hingham, descended a remarkably talented collection of 18th, 19th and 20th scientists/inventors/industrial innovators and artists/poets/craftsmen. The family lines have distinctions—with Ralph’s line most prominent as scientists and inventors while Wiliam’s descendants stand out as artists and poets and craftsmen.

Part 2 of this blog will focus on William’s line—and its noteworthy creators:  poets, a maker of woodcut engravings, a botanical illustrator, several woodenware craftsmen and more.  

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Joshua Winslow “Out of The Frying Pan and Into the Fire”

Portrait of Joshua Winslow (1755) by John Singleton Copley

A letter in our archives, written almost exactly 250 years ago today, provides a personal account of events leading up to the famous Boston Tea Party,  whose semiquincentennial will be widely celebrated next month.  The letter is from Joshua Winslow, a merchant and member of an ancient Plymouth County family, to Jotham Gay, son of Hingham, Massachusetts, pastor Ebenezer Gay, and himself a merchant.  In his November 18, 1773, letter to Gay, Winslow describes his appointment as one of six “consignees” authorized to receive (and pay the duty on) East India Company tea to be brought into the colonies under the newly enacted Tea Act of 1773; Boston’s resistance to the importation of that tea; and his growing sense that he might be heading “out of the frying pan and into the fire.”  Winslow and Gay were in business together and good friends, their families linked by several marriages.  When he wrote to Gay, Winslow had just returned to Massachusetts after a number of years in Cumberland, Nova Scotia.  This is only one letter in a long-standing correspondence between Winslow and Gay, but it is both evocative and timely.

Winslow first provides a clear explanation of the economic and political factors at play as a result of the Tea Act:

[M]y time has been much engaged of late in a New Affair, which, whether it has reached you or not I can’t tell, but I have said just now something of my going out of the frying pan into the fire.  This was meant to allude to a New Measure of the East India Company for introducing their teas into the several Governments in America at a lower Rate than ordinary, in order to prevent the vast Importation of Dutch Teas, which, as they do not pay the duty, are sold at a lower rate than that from England, by which means the India Company’s Teas have been accumulating upon their hands & the great door for vending the same into the Colonies in a manner Shut up.  By the Interest of my Friends I was appointed one of the Companies Agents in Boston, & if the thing is Effected, it will afford a handsome commission.  But the Country seems to be all up in arms again, & as great a Commotion at last is made about it, as there was about the Stamp Act–nay, they seem to carry opposition much higher than they did then.  All the provinces seem determined that it shall never be landed in America . . . .

Even if being sold directly from the East India Company, the tea remained subject to taxation under the Townshend duties, and thus the Americans supporting the Patriot cause did not want this lower-priced tea landing in the colonies.  The six consignees–Governor Thomas Hutchinson and two of his sons, Benjamin Faneuil, Richard Clarke, and Winslow–would be responsible for paying the duties before selling the tea on to New Englanders.

Winslow’s letter then turned to a description of some alarming events of November 3, 1773–what may be thought of as the opening chapter in the Tea Party story:

[T]o so great a height had [opposition to the East India Company tea] got in Boston, the beginning of this month, that I had an Express from my associate Mr. Faneuil on the evening of the 2nd Inst. to be in Town next day by 11 o Clock.  I set out at Midnight and rode till 9 o Clock Next Morning.  When I got to town I found the Flag up at Liberty Tree, & the inhabitants had been notified by hand bills Stuck up the day before to appear at the Tree at 12 o Clock that day to hear the Consignees resign their Commissions, & swear that they would return the Tea by the ships which brought it out.  We met at Mr. Clark’s Store, who with the Governor’s Two Sons are the other Consignees & determined that we would not go. Whereupon a Committee of the whole house came down from the Tree thro: King Street (at about 1 o Clock) to Mr. Clark’s store, where Mollineux at the head of a number demanded of us to Resign our Commissions & swear that we would Return the Tea — &c &c.  He was told we had no answer to make thereto, whereupon we were declared Enemies to the Country, & notified that we were to expect the Resentment of the People.  Accordingly soon after he left the Store, an Attack began by breaking the Doors, Pelting Stones, Dirt, &c, upon those within and attempted to break in upon us, but having a number of resolute Friends we sustained the attack & after about one hour’s siege they marched off , the chief of them at least, & we being Reinforced by a number of Friends, quitted the Store . . . .

 “Next day was pretty quiet,” Winslow continued,

but a Town Meeting was ordered for the day following — Which met accordingly but it being 5th Nov: and no small intimations of another attack that night under the sanction of its being Pope’s Night, I not being desirous of another Amusement of that Nature ordered my Chaise & left Town — nor have I been there since.

(Pope Night, a New England descendant of England’s Guy Fawkes Day, was a raucous and sometimes violent celebration; a consignee of English tea might reasonably be concerned about additional trouble.)

Back in Marshfield, Winslow expanded on his frustration:

There have been other Meetings since for the same purpose & one attack upon Mr. Clark’s House, but as the Tea is not yet arrived and until it is we are in Manner Ignorant of the Nature of the Instructions which may accompany it.  We cannot resign in Honor or Conscience; for this we are abused and stigmatized as Enemies of the Country & what not — but I need not enlarge as you will see the proceedings in the Publick Prints.

He closed on a somewhat hopeful note:

How the matter will end must be left to time.  Meanwhile, I don’t intend to go to Town again until [the tea] arrives, when perhaps there may be such Instructions therewith as may make our own way Clear, either to Resign or to Accommodate matters in such a manner as may prove Satisfactory to the People. 

We can’t be accused of a spoiler if we suggest that Winslow’s optimism was misplaced.  In his next letter to Gay, dated January 3, 1774 (also in our archives), he recounts what has become one of the most familiar stories of the Revolution:

Whether you have received my former letter or not, it is most probable you have heard by the way of Halifax of the violent lengths to which they have proceeded in Boston, with the Tea ship’t by the India Company to that port.  That when it arrived in that Harbour the people Seized upon it, & put a guard on board the Several Ships to prevent it being landed, with a determination that it should be returned from whence it came.  That the Agents, apprehensive of further ill treatment from the People, retired to the Castle for the safety of their persons sometime about the beginning of December, where they yet remain.  That the People finding the measure of returning the Tea impracticable to be accomplished had destroyed all that came in these vessels, to the amount of 342 chests, by cutting them to pieces and turning the whole of it into the Dock. whereby a Loss of about L16,000 must fall upon some body or other. 

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A Very Green Street: Irish Families in Hingham in 1900

Detail from 1903 Hingham map

Green Street, which became a mapped street of Hingham in 1838, had existed as an informal road since early in Hingham’s history. In the late 1800s it was increasingly populated by Irish immigrants and their families, though the name Green Street does not appear to have a direct connection with its Irish community.  The immigrants here primarily came from counties in southern Ireland like Cork and Tipperary, although Dan Daly, one of the early Irish of Green Street, had arrived in 1855 from County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, where St. Patrick is said to have founded a Celtic Christian monastery.

19 Green Street, Hingham

In 1900, many in the neighborhood, like Dan Daly, at 19 Green Street –then 72 and still working – had livelihoods tied to nearby estates and the comings and goings at Hingham Harbor. The Gilded Age had increased wealth for some in Hingham while also creating jobs for many Irish immigrants fleeing poverty tied to the Irish potato famine which began in 1845.  In addition to Daly, Irish-born estate gardeners included

23 Green Street, Hingham

30-year-old John Connelly and 32-year-old James Donnell, both of whom settled on Green Street to raise families.  Also working as a gardener in 1900 was 78-year-old John Magner. He and his wife Bridget Hanley were empty nesters in 1900, after raising 5 children at 23 Green Street.  One son, John Magner, Jr., lived with his young family on Martins Lane, where he was head gardener for the Brewer Estate.  (The Magner clan would continue to grow in Hingham during the 20th century.)

St. Paul’s Church, Hingham, c. 1930.

Another Green Street resident likely employed by a nearby estate was Judith (Barrett) Buttimer, 61, a widow who worked as a laundress. Judith’s husband, John Buttimer, a farm laborer, died young, at only 55, as did many hard-working immigrant laborers. John had emigrated in 1854 with a younger brother, Thomas Buttimer, who in 1900 was a farm foreman in Hingham. Thomas and his wife, Catherine Barrett, had married in 1858 in Randolph–before the building of St. Paul’s, Hingham’s first Catholic church (dedicated in July 1871).  One of their six children, Thomas H. Buttimer State Rep. Thomas H. ButtimerJr., who in 1900 had his own family home on Lincoln Street, was a prominent  attorney, and in 1902 would be elected as state representative from the 3rd district. Over on Green Street, Aunt Judith must have been quite proud, although in 1902, as a woman, she would not yet have had the right to vote.

Milk bottle cap, World’s End Farm

The 1900 census identifies some other Irish immigrants on Green Street as “farm hands” or “farm laborers,” including 37-year-old Dennis Long, married with two young children, and 48-year-old James Buckley, married with two teen-agers. Long and Buckley likely were working at one of the farms in north Hingham at the time, perhaps John Brewer’s “gentleman’s farm” – established in the 19th century at World’s End, or the Jordan Farm,  then one of the largest farms in Hingham, located on Union Street (now the location of Hingham High School.)

Hingham’s days as a Gilded Age seasonal tourist destination were, in 1900, mostly past. The steamship lines recently had ended their scheduled stops at Hingham Harbor after assessing the damage to the Hingham wharves caused by the 1898 Portland Gale.  Melville Garden, the amusement park at Crow Point, had been dismantled in 1896, and the Old Colony House, just up the hill on Summer Street, had burned down in 1872.  But Green Street’s location near the harbor gave its residents convenient access to work related to the coal and wood fuel-supply dealers, lumber wharves, and other harbor-related businesses. For many, this proximity to businesses needing carting and other hauling and loading services created jobs as teamsters, or as hostlers. Teamsters living on Green Street in 1900 included the recently married Cornelius Ryan, 31, and William Welch, 33 and married with young children.

Kimball Lumber yard at Hingham Harbor

6 Green Street, Hingham

William Welch was born here to Irish immigrants John Welch and wife Julia of 6 Green Street.  John Welch, 80 years old in 1900, was still working as a laborer according to the census record. He and Julia had eleven children, but only four were still living in 1900. Tuberculosis and pneumonia, along with scarlet fever, were frequent causes of death for children and young adults in the late 19th and early 20th century Irish immigrant community here.  Hostlers on Green Street included 27-year-old James Riley, living here with wife Bridget and two young children, along with mother-in-law Bridget Coughlan. James was a recent arrival, emigrating as a teenager in 1890. His 20-year-old wife had come earlier, as a young girl in 1877.

Also now working as a hostler was Thomas Morrissey Jr., 38, a former shoemaker, married for 17 years to Mary Crehan. For the Morrsisseys, 1900 was just seven years since the tragic loss of three of their young children to scarlet fever. The children’s young lives are memorialized on the family headstone at St. Paul’s Cemetery.  Both Thomas and Mary were born in Irish immigrant households in Hingham. Thomas grew up on Elm Street. Mary’s parents earlier had a home on Green Street but after her dad’s death, her mother Ellen Crehan lived with her youngest daughter Catherine’s family here.

Of course, the horses managed by both teamsters and hostlers needed the services of blacksmiths. There were several blacksmith shops in the downtown Hingham area then and one Irish immigrant blacksmith then living on Green Street, Michael Downes, may be one of those shown in this 1900 image of workers at the Huntley Blacksmith shop.

In 1900, Green Street residents also found work for the railroad. The Old Colony line’s South Shore branch through Hingham to Cohasset, built in 1849, created jobs including those held by 40-year-old Irish immigrant Jeremiah Collins, who was supporting his Irish-born wife Margaret and six children born here as a Section Foreman for the railroad, and 39-year-old Irish immigrant Michael Kelly, a track walker for the railroad, whose household included, in addition to wife Margaret and six children, an Irish-born boarder, Michael Wallace, also a railroad worker. Taking in boarders was a common practice in the Irish community here, both to assist newer immigrants and to provide added income for the household. The children in the Kelly household as of 1900 included four daughters and two sons, all under ten years old. Another daughter would be born in 1901. Three of the “Kelly girls” of Green Street would, years later, be among the first women in Hingham to register to vote after the 19th amendment passed in 1920.  By that time, their father had left railroad work behind and joined his neighbors working at nearby private estates.

Hingham Street Railway Car on Summer Street in front of Walsh’s Paint Shop, May 31, 1896.

As the new century dawned, both sons and daughters of the Irish of Green Street often left school and began working as teenagers. Many then stayed in their parents’ household into adulthood, perhaps in part to contribute to the family income as their parents aged. These next-generation Green Street residents at work in 1900 included James Buckley, Jr., 19, then working for the Electric Street Railway.  (One such street car is show here traveling along Summer Street at the harbor, not far from Green Street.)

Burr, Brown Tassel Factory

Three adult daughters of John and Julia Welch were living with their parents in 1900 and working as: a dry-goods dealer (Mary, 39), a dressmaker (Hannah, 35); and a fringe-maker (Julia, 34).  As a fringe-maker, Julia Welch likely worked at the Burr Brown Tassel Factory, nearby on Fearing Road. Julia Buttimer’s daughter, Nellie, 33, worked as a clerk at a shoe and boot store. Dan Daly’s 34-year-old son, Edmund, who lived in his parents’ Green Street home with wife Margaret in 1900, was employed as a clothing dealer.

Detail from 1893 Hingham map showing Dower ropewalk on Hersey Street.

Before ending our visit to the Green Street of 1900, we’ll note some other residents who, like Thomas Morrissey, had ties to the close-by west Hingham area referred to as an “Irish village” in the 1993 Hingham history, Not All Is Changed, published by the Hingham Historic Commission.  James Dower Jr., 33, who in 1900 lived on Green Street with his wife Catherine, their newborn child, and his mother-in-law, Ellen Crehan, was born in Hingham, to Irish immigrants James Dower Sr. and Catherine Bowden, at 135 Hersey Street. This home is still there, near the entrance to St. Paul’s Cemetery, and, like other homes referenced in our visit today, is listed on the Town of Hingham’s Comprehensive Inventory of Historic Assets. In 1900, James Dower Jr. would have walked to work on Hersey Street, where he was  a ropemaker in his father, James Dower’s “rope walk,” then adjacent to the family home. (The rope-making mechanism from the Dower ropewalk is on public display at Hingham Town Hall, on loan from the Hingham Historical Society.)

21 Green Street, Hingham

Mary Casey, living on Green Street in 1900, was the widow of ropemaker Jonas Casey, who may have worked at the Dower ropewalk. The Casey home, at 21 Green Street is another vintage highlight of this charming neighborhood.  If you have enjoyed this brief visit to Hingham’s Green Street of 1900, consider booking a docent-led tour of Hingham’s Irish Immigrant Neighborhood sometime this spring or summer. The walking tour was created as part of the nine-town South Shore Irish Heritage Trail launched in 2022. Email info@hinghamhistorical.org to book.

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Christmas Greetings from the Pacific Theater

Meg Ferris Kenagy, author and chronicler in this space of her family’s history in Hingham and beyond, recently donated three Christmas cards sent home to Hingham by her father and two of her uncles during their service in the U.S. military during World War II.  Each young man was stationed in the Pacific Theater–far from home–and each remained away for several years, with his only contact with loved ones coming via cards and letters.  These three holiday cards, therefore, are more than novelty items that look so different from cards we are sending each other right now. Rather, they are also a tangible reminder during the holiday season of how fortunate most of us are to be able to celebrate with those nearest to us.

Hingham native Oliver L. (“Morg”) Ferris (1918-1985) served in the Army Air Corps as an airplane mechanic stationed in Hawaii and Guam, achieving the rank of Sergeant.  He was a married man when he entered the service; while he was abroad, his wife, Margaret (“Rita”) Ferris, lived with her parents, the Scanlans, in Dorchester. For Christmas 1944, Morg sent Rita and her parents an Army Air Corps Christmas card which he signed on the front: “With all my love, Morg.”  The card, postmarked December 9, 1944, shows aircraft in formation flying out of clouds towards what looks like a Christmas star.  Between border decorations of palm trees and holiday wreaths at the top and bottom, it includes an inspirational, mission-driven message: “That It Might Shine On.”

Morg’s younger brother Richard Ferris (1921-2016) was also serving in the Pacific with the Army Air Corps, but his choice of Christmas card could not have been more different! Richard served in the National Guard from 1939 to 1940 and, from 1941 to 1945, with the Army Air Corps as a member of the 3rd Bomber Group, which took the nickname “The Grim Reapers.”

Richard’s card features the outline of the island of New Guinea drawn with an overlay of a burning ship and attacking airplanes.  The emblem of the “Grim Reapers”–a skeleton carrying a bloody scythe–is printed in the upper right, while “Season’s Greetings” is printed in red and blue at the bottom left.  The printed message on the inside is perhaps a bit jarring for a greeting card:

This is our busy season / We hope you’ll excuse us, please

The Grim Reapers have to harvest / Those sons of the Nipponese.

We can only pause a moment / To wish you Christmas Cheer;

But this we guarantee you: / Peace during the Coming Year. 

The card is signed in pencil, “Richard.”

While the card is undated and bears no postmark, the context suggests it may have been sent for Christmas 1943, when the Third Bomber Group was indeed very “busy” with aerial bombing of New Guinea, as the allies fought a lengthy campaign to win New Guinea, which had been invaded by the Japanese in 1942. (Shown here: the 3rd  Bomber Group attacks Japanese ships in Simpson Harbor, New Guinea, Nov. 2, 1943.  Photo courtesy of the U.S. Naval Historical Center.) 

Dorchester native Edward Scanlan (1920-1965) was Rita Ferris’ brother. and Morg and Richard’s brother-in-law.  He served in the Navy as a marine engineer and was stationed in the Philippines.  His undated card, sent to Morg and Rita, riffs on exotic travel posters of the day, featuring a four-color picture of a G.I. drinking from a coconut shell or wooden bowl offered by a native woman, while a native man operates a well nearby.  “All’s Well in the Philippines,” the card reassures the recipient (albeit with a very bad pun).  Inside, Ed has carefully handwritten the names of various cities in the Philippines in a style suggestive of steamer trunk labels and wrote:

Greetings Rita and Morg, We may leave the P.I.’s today or tomorrow for Finchauen, New Guinea; we aren’t sure yet. That is, I haven’t decided.  I’d like to send Morg’s family a card but I don’t know the address so please give them my regards.  See you in the funny papers.  Keep smiling, Big Brother Ed.

On the back of the card, Ed added a wistful postscript:  You’re on the right side of the ocean; when you’re in the good old U.S.A.

Happily, all three young men returned home.

Morg returned home to Rita, and they had seven daughters, including Meg Kenagy, the donor of these cards.  Richard married Muriel Richards and served in the Hingham Fire Department from 1947 to 1967, achieving the rank of Lieutenant.  When Ed returned, he married Pauline Russell and also became a firefighter, for the Boston Fire Department.

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From Plow Blades and Horseshoes to Automobiles: A Metal-working Skill Lived On

Earlier this year I was researching Hingham’s Irish immigrant neighborhood in preparation for the launch of a Hingham walking tour tied to the South Shore Irish Heritage Trail.   As described in Not All Is Changed: A Life History of Hingham (1993, Hingham Historical Commission), “by the 1870s, Crowe’s Lane, Hersey near Elm Street, upper Elm, Emerald Street, and Bates Court, were an Irish village . . . .”  I spent time reviewing pages about these streets in the Loring Notebooks in our Society archives. These “notebooks” actually are binders filled with historic details about Hingham streets and properties, assembled by local historian Julian Loring (1899-1978).  The description of a property at the corner of Lafayette and Elm Streets — in the heart of the “Irish village” intrigued me.  Daniel Hickey, a blacksmith, and his family, lived on this corner from late 1889 until around 1910. I did some additional digging and felt rewarded for the effort:  the multi-generational Hickey family story that emerged paints a vivid picture of life in Hingham, and America, in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Daniel Hickey was born in Hingham to Irish immigrant parents. And it was with his father John that a metal-working family tradition began.

Irish immigrant John Hickey, from Kilkenny, met Bridgett Hackett, of County Cork, on Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia. They arrived in Boston in 1832 and married there that November.  They had settled in Hingham sometime before 1835 when their first daughter, Mary, was born. John described himself as a laborer on his 1845 naturalization form but would soon develop far more specialized skills.

Howard Foundry at Hingham Harbor, 1896. Kimball Family Photo Collection, Hingham Historical Society.

The Hickey genealogy in the 1893 History of the Town of Hingham tells us that John and Bridgett found a place to live on North Street near the harbor. Successive federal and state census records tell us that by 1850, John was employed as an “iron melter,” a “furnace man,” then an “iron screener” and, by 1860, a “moulder.”  Although no surviving record could be found, almost certainly John was working at the Howard Foundry at Hingham Harbor.

John and Bridgett’s 9 children—5 daughters and 4 sons–were born in Hingham. (John died in 1866 and his wife Bridget in 1873.) Three of their four sons–James, born in Hingham in 1839; Thomas, born in 1841; and Daniel, born in 1851–followed their dad into hot metal work.

Their eldest son James became an iron screener and moulder as a teenager (likely joining his dad at the local foundry) and then took his trade into the Civil War, where he served in the 4th Regiment of the Massachusetts Cavalry—perhaps making cannon balls as well as horseshoes for his unit. After the war James married and moved to Canada.

Second son Thomas, described as a blacksmith when he joined the 1st Cavalry in 1861, later served in the 4thCavalry. His 4 plus years of service were eventful and admirable as related in The Town of Hingham the Late Civil War (1876, F. Burr and G. Lincoln.) He mustered out at the war’s end in 1865 as a second lieutenant. James and Thomas were among the 24 young men from Hingham who were in cavalry service during the Civil War.

Burr-Brown Tassel Factory, Fearing Road, Hingham, c. 1865. Hingham Historical Society

Thomas returned to the family’s Hingham home on North Street, where in 1865, he (aged 23) and 4 younger siblings were living with their parents. His 21-year-old sister Ellen worked at the nearby Burr, Brown Tassel Factory, a popular employer for young women from Irish immigrant families, and John Jr., 19, was a periodical dealer, perhaps selling reading material to commuters from the then-downtown train station. Thomas married in 1866. By 1879, records show that Thomas had a 2-man blacksmith business in Hingham. It is quite possible that the second blacksmith at Thomas’ shop was younger brother Daniel, who would have been in his 20’s by that time. By 1880, Thomas and his wife Mary Jane had a home on Cottage Street and three young sons. They moved to Quincy in 1883.

Daniel stayed in Hingham. In 1876, he married Margaret Hanley of East Weymouth, whose parents, John Hanley and Margaret Keane, were both Irish immigrants. John Hanley, a farmer, was born in Tipperary County. Perhaps Margaret met Daniel Hickey when he provided blacksmith services for her dad’s farm animals. After they married and started a family, the couple first lived on Ship Street. By 1892, Daniel and Margaret had 5 children — 3 sons and 2 daughters.

Detail from “A Bird’s Eye View of Hingham,” map published by A. F. Poole, Brockton, Mass. (1885). Hingham Historical Society

In November 1889, Daniel and his family moved to the corner of Elm and Lafayette, where the property included a barn suitable for horseshoeing. This excerpt from an 1885 illustrated map of Hingham shows the corner as it likely looked when Daniel bought the property in 1889, before the surrounding Maple Street neighborhood was developed, around 1900. Daniel also had a business location for his blacksmith business within walking distance, at 23 North Street. Daniel bought the corner property at 49 Elm Street from Alfred Howard, a carpenter and cabinetmaker, who may have built the home (c.1860) which still stands at this address. Alfred was the son of a blacksmith, Edmund Howard. Daniel had likely known the Howard family for years, as it was Alfred’s uncle, Charles Howard, inventor of the Howard Plow, who had started the Howard Foundry at Hingham Harbor.

A horse-drawn open wagon passes the Cushing House on North Street c. 1896. Kimball Family Photo Collection, Hingham Historical Society

The late 19th century was a busy time for livery stables and the blacksmith trade as horse and buggy was a primary means of transportation.  In the 1860 census there were 14 blacksmiths doing business in town, as related in a fascinating program on the history of transportation in Hingham researched and presented by archivist Bob Malme (and now available to view on the Society’s YouTube channel.

But times were about to change. The first automobile in Hingham, arriving in 1902 according to Not All Is Changed, was owned by Francis Willard Brewer (1846-1907), an affluent local “gentleman farmer.” By 1912 Hingham had acquired its first motor-powered fire engine, replacing one team of horses. That year, with their family now grown and local blacksmithing businesses gradually being replaced by auto repair shops, Daniel and Margaret downsized to a home at 37 Elm Street. But the family interest in horses, and in metal work, continued with their sons Daniel Jr. and Herbert.

Daniel Hickey, Jr., born in Hingham in 1883, and later living in Boston, was, at age 34, a riding instructor, according to his WWI draft registration.  He worked for a time at Boston’s Park Riding School, which was operated by a J. B. Ferry.  Daniel was also described as an “automobile driver”—which suggests he worked as a chauffeur in early automobiles, in addition to teaching students to ride horses.

Hudson Motors dealership, Summer Street, Hingham, 1926. Kimball Family Photo Collection, Hingham Historical Society

Indicative of the changing times, Daniel’s oldest son Herbert, born in 1878, moved to Detroit sometime after 1910, and had a long career in the fast-growing auto industry. For a time, he was an inspector at the Hudson Motor Car Company, which had an early dealership on Summer Street at Hingham Harbor. Hudson Motor Company, founded in 1909, merged in 1954 to become American Motors Corporation.  It was fascinating to learn how the Hickey family’s livelihood evolved with changes in transportation, while the skills in metal work continued through the generations.