Vacation

The Local History Room will be closed from July 21 through August 4.

Regatta on Kingston Bay, circa 1905
Regatta on Kingston Bay, circa 1905

If you click on the photo to display a larger size, you may be able to make out what looks like the Bug Light on the horizon on the right side of the the photo (under the black dashed line).

 

Sources: Cyanotype from the Delano Photograph Collection IC11 (scan federally funded with LSTA funds through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and digitized at the Boston Public Library in conjunction with the Digital Commonwealth)

 

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

Fishing

Two boys fishing in the millpond of C. Drew & Co., no date
Two boys fishing in the millpond of C. Drew & Co., no date

This is Emily Fuller Drew’s copy negative of a panel card probably taken by someone else sometime earlier.  There’s not a lot more information about it: just two boys fishing in the pond that provided water power to C. Drew & Co., the long-lived Kingston tool manufacturer.  (There’s a great deal of information about C. Drew and their tools here).

Who were the boys? Who knows?  That’s not captured on any of the three versions of this image in the Local History Room. Yet, for all the identifying detail lost to history, there’s something painterly about the composition of the two figures and the texture of the image that abstracts it just enough to capture the hazy, nostalgic air of a hot summer afternoon spent fishing.

 

Sources: Negative from the Emily Fuller Drew Collection MC16 (scan federally funded with LSTA funds through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and digitized at the Boston Public Library in conjunction with the Digital Commonwealth)

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

Happy 4th!

In 1910, Kingston’s first 4th of July parade rolled through town.

Captain Jones in the Shallop float, 4th of July Parade, 1910
Captain Jones in the Shallop float, 4th of July Parade, 1910
Jones River Village Club float, 4th of July Parade, 1910
Jones River Village Club float, 4th of July Parade, 1910
Grand Army of the Republic float, 4th of July Parade, 1910
Grand Army of the Republic float, 4th of July Parade, 1910
Parade riders, 4th of July Parade, 1910
Parade riders, 4th of July Parade, 1910

More photos from this parade are here and here.

 

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.