A whale of a tale

Whale beached at Ah-de-nah, October 20, 1948. By Ethel Packard.
Whale beached at Ah-de-nah, October 20, 1948. By Ethel Packard.

In the 1948 Annual Report of the Town of Kingston, the Board of Health reported:

On October 20th, 1948, a fin-back whale came ashore north of the town pier [today’s town landing] at the foot of River Street. Measuring 42 ft. in length and weighing approximately 30 tons, this would ordinarily have been a human interest story, but it developed into a Board of Health problem when this Board was forced to dispose of the mammal.  Our Highway Department with the assistance of power machinery, loaded the whale on a heavy-duty platform trailer and carried it to the Town Dump where it was suitably buried.

After the dump closed a few years later, the Kingston Drive-In was built on the site.  Today this location is occupied by Summerhill Plaza, so yes, indeed, there is a whale buried under the Stop-n-Shop!

Whale beached at Ah-de-nah, October 20, 1948. By Ethel Packard.
Whale beached at Ah-de-nah, October 20, 1948. By Ethel Packard.

Harvest time

A beautiful cabinet card recently came into the Local History Room, part of a larger collection. While the contrast in the original is a little faded (and has been adjusted in this scan), the image is otherwise perfect, and the subject — harvesting the cranberry crop — could not be more timely.

Cranberry harvest, possible around 1900
Cranberry harvest, possible around 1900

This close-up shows men, women and children at work, dressed more formally than we might expect for such manual labor.

Detail of cranberry harvest, possibly around 1900
Detail of cranberry harvest, possibly around 1900

But where is this bog?  It could be almost anywhere: the blank back of the cabinet card yields no clues.  A little sleuthing through the photograph collections however, turns up a second copy, much more worn but bearing a typed caption that tells us that this is indeed a Kingston location.

Keith & Adams Cranberry Bog, Kingston, Mass. possibly around 1900
Keith & Adams Cranberry Bog, Kingston, Mass. possibly around 1900