Memorial Day parade

Another Memorial Day is upon us.  Here are a few photos from the Local History Room collections which provide a glimpse of one of Kingston’s Memorial Day parades sometime before 1961.*

Sailors from the U.S.S. Des Moines march on Main Street
Sailors from the U.S.S. Des Moines march on Main Street
Majorettes on Main Street
Majorettes on Main Street
Solemn moment on the Training Green
Solemn moment on the Training Green

 

*This date is based on a flag carried by the color guard, which reads “U.S.S. Des Moines.” This heavy cruiser was launched in 1946 and decommissioned in 1961.

 

Source: LHR General Image Collection IC7

 

For more, visit the Kingston Public Library, and the Local History Room, and the full blog at piqueoftheweek.wordpress.com.

 

Fruit delivery

"Peanut Jack" Costa, around 1908
“Peanut Jack” Costa, around 1908

Who was Peanut Jack?  There’s nothing in the Local History Room to help identify him, but the 1890 Plymouth and Kingston Directory gives us this.

Mrs. D. Costa, Wholesale and Retail Dealer in...Fruits and Confectionery, Cigars and Tobacco, 1890
Mrs. D. Costa, Wholesale and Retail Dealer in…Fruits and Confectionery, Cigars and Tobacco, 1890

The 1909 Plymouth Directory has almost the same ad, but the proprietress in that version is a Mrs. M. D. Costa, exactly what we see printed on the tarp or wagon cover right next to Peanut Jack in the photo.  So it seems likely that Peanut Jack was one of the “teams making regular trips to all places in the vicinity.”

 

Sources: Delano Photograph Collection IC11; Books OC7

 

For more, visit the Kingston Public Library, and the Local History Room, and the full blog at piqueoftheweek.wordpress.com.