Kingston (Massachusetts) Public Library
Putting together an exhibit for Valentine’s Day, I found this postcard. Cataloging it for our online picture collection (coming soon!), I found this subject heading in the LOC’s TGM: “Courtship. Use for Courting, Flirtation, Wooing.” Yes, I think that just does capture it.
Source: MC11 Joseph Cushman Finney Papers
Staged to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Pilgrim’s landing, the 1921 Pageant of the Pilgrim Spirit was a sprawling, epic production. Among its stranger elements — ranking alongside William Bradford’s premonition of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and the Prologue and Finale spoken by “The Voice of the Rock” — has to be the appearance of the Norsemen.
The pageant program dates the appearance of these early visitors in Plymouth to about 1000 AD, and describes the performance as “played in pantomime to music.” Only one role is specifically named — Thorwald played by John Delano — but 46 men from Kingston, Duxbury, Plymouth and Marshfield are named as players in this scene, including Kingston’s Town Clerk of many years George Cushman.
Given the Norsemen’s spectacular outfits, it seems a shame that Plymouth Rock got more lines.
The program is online in full here.
Source: Jones River Village Historical Society Collection (photo); Vertical Files: “The Pilgrim Spirit” (program).
In 1928, the first and second graders in one of the Kingston schools wrote a short book about Laddie, the dog who saved Christmas. As Elspeth Hardy, their teacher and editor, wrote in the preface, “The children worked collectively; one child started with an opening sentence, the others took the thought and followed on until the tale was finished.” Illustrations by Kingstonian Marion Cobb Dries complete the work.
Stop by the Library and read this Kingston Christmas classic.
Back when the Library was on the other side of the street, the Kingston Inn occupied our current site at the corner of Green and Summer. Originally called the Patuxet House, the hotel was built in 1854 by Josiah Cushman to capitalize on the arrival of the Old Colony Railroad just a few years earlier. The hotel was not particularly successful, and several owners and managers were involved through the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Some strange and mysterious events took place at the Inn. In 1881, the remains of six people and “funerary objects” were discovered on the grounds. Because it was a suspected Native American burial ground, the remains were turned over the Peabody Essex Museum. In 1921, the “Rum-Runner’s Murder” took place in the 20 car garage. The somewhat cloudy circumstances involved professional dice players, a trunkful of illegal liquor and $4,000 in missing cash. A murder trial followed in 1922. In 1927, the re-christened Bay View Inn was offered as first prize in a raffle as the First Annual Grand Bazaar by the Ancient Order of Hibernians. For reasons unknown, the raffle never happened.
By the 1950’s, the hotel — once again called the Kingston Inn — was advertised as a summer resort for African-Americans, particularly those travelling from New York for a Cape Cod vacation. Unfortunately the venue remained as unsuccessful as it had been a century earlier. In 1970, the contents were auctioned and the building was razed.
Source: Major Bradford’s Town, by Doris Johnson (Town of Kingston: 1976)
This month’s exhibit celebrates summer in Kingston with picnics and parades, fresh sweet corn from the farmer’s market, swimming, fishing, and just lounging on the grass eating ice cream.
Here’s the front of a float in Kingston’s 200th Anniversary Parade, which rolled on August 20, 1926. The four boys behind the float seem very interested in whatever’s going on behind that shack…
Well, yeah, that’s why!
Kingston’s first Fourth of July parade rolled in 1910. Stop by the Library to see photographs of the festivities, or check out this earlier post.
