Happy Thanksgiving!

Sketch of Pigrim Thanksgiving for Plimouth Plantation, n.d.
Sketch of Pilgrim Thanksgiving for Plimouth Plantation, n.d.

Last year, a great color postcard really captured the festivities of the holiday, and the year before, a little dance card prompted a step into the many varieties of the quadrille.  This year, Helen Foster provides a look back at Thanksgiving in Kingston history.  Above, a preliminary sketch she drew for a publication by the Plimouth Plantation shows the hardy First Comers at dinner outside (OUTSIDE?).  And below, something she designed that is both timely and useful in solving any gravy problems that might arise.

Ad for Quick-made Brown Gravy Powder, n.d.
Ad for Quick-made Brown Gravy Powder, n.d.

What other colors could they have possibly made?

Kingston Cops

In 1954 Town Meeting

Voted: That the sum of $2,200 be transferred from unappropriated available funds in the treasury for the purchase of a so-called station wagon type vehicle, to be used as an ambulance for the Police Department and authorize the Selectmen to turn in the present Hudson now owned by the Police Department, and apply the allowance thereof to the purchase price of the new vehicle.

Chief James Goonan, Patrolman Kenneth Cram and Patrolman Donald Elwell, circa 1955. Photo by Loren St. Onge.
Chief James Goonan, Patrolman Kenneth Cram and Patrolman Donald Elwell, circa 1954. Photo by Loren St. Onge.

They got the new station wagon type vehicle — a Dodge — just after that Town Meeting in March.

Chief Goonan and the new patrol wagon, circa 1955
Chief Goonan and the new vehicle, circa 1954. Photo by Loren St. Onge

In his year-end report, Chief Goonan wrote that

64 ambulance trips [totaling 5,196 miles] were made with the new station-wagon type police car that was purchased after the March town meeting.  On many occasions this piece of equipment has saved a life, and in so doing has paid for itself many times.  Your cooperation in helping us to obtain this much needed piece of equipment is greatly appreciated.

Maybe one of those trips ended here…

Sergeant Arthur Moskos and Chief James Goonan with an unknown woman, Plymouth Police Station, circa 1950
Sergeant Arthur Moskos and Chief Goonan escort an unknown prisoner into the Plymouth Police Station, no date.

New exhibit: An Army to Gather the Crop.

 

Cranberry harvest, Keith & Adams bog on Summer Street, October 1893
Cranberry harvest, Keith & Adams bog on Summer Street, October 1893

This month’s exhibit is a glimpse into the long history of cranberries in Kingston. Stop by the Library to gather some trivia to show off at Thanksgiving dinner!

Back to the tropics?

 

Trade Wind, 1931
Trade Wind, 1931

 

 

Sometime back, coconuts mysteriously appeared in a “Kingston” photo. Today, the mystery was nearly solved, but not quite.  This print by Huc Mazelet Luquiens, a Massachusetts-born artist known for his images of Hawaii, had been hidden between a silhouette of Abby Bosworth Holmes Jones and the back of the frame that held it.  At first glance, it appeared to place the coconut party in Hawaii.  Perhaps Abby and her husband Henry M. Jones bought this print as a souvenir of a trip to the islands, but no, the date at lower left is 1931.  Abby died in 1922, Henry in 1926.

While the print links Kingston with tropics once again, reminding us that Kingston ships sailed the Pacific throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, still we wonder: where exactly was the coconut party?