One of the things I love about this blog is the list of search terms that people use to get here. It’s like a secret glimpse of what they want, and the sometimes very specific and other times wildly divergent ways they describe whatever that is. The top searches are a mix of general and Kingston-centric — Nick’s Rock, delivery wagons, dance cards, famous hermits, Old Colony Railroad, all with hundreds of hits. But my all-time favorite is a little ways down the list, at 23 searches over the last 4 or so years: leprechaun couple.
From Emily Drew’s photos of the Old Burying Ground, here’s the marker for Charles Little, son to Charles and Sarah Little who passed away, aged 4 month and 5 days, on February 14, 1717.
Source: Emily Fuller Drew Collection MC16. Negative scanned by the Boston Public Library, under a grant from the LSTA via MBLC. More on that here.
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’sTGM: “Courtship. Use for Courting, Flirtation, Wooing.” Yes, I think that just does capture it.
This month’s exhibit showcases people from Kingston dressing up like their Pilgrim predecessors. In 1920, the spectacle known as the Tercentenary Pageant featured a number of Kingstonians, new immigrants and Mayflower descendants alike, among its 1,300 actors. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Major John Bradford House served as the setting for dramatic vignettes and an educational film, directed by none other than the auteur responsible for Dating Do’s and Don’ts. Stop by and take a look.
Once again, history anonymizes. I don’t know who they were or where they were (or, for that matter, whether they took turns posing with the same fish!), but their pride and satisfaction in the day’s “work” remains clear.
Old Home Day is a small town New England tradition popular from the 1860s into the 1930s, and later in many cases. In Kingston, the town-wide event, which included clambakes, sports, dancing, singing and parades, was held annually from 1903 to 1908, again from 1933 to 1938, in the 1970s and the 1990s.
This month’s exhibit features programs and photos from some of these events.
And the tradition continues on September 8, Kingston’s new Old Home Day! To get involved, contact the Board of Selectmen now.
Working on a box of photographs recently, I pulled this out of an acid-free envelope.
Man sitting in a doorway, no date
Sometimes a photograph just catches your eye, and the sharp detail and rough textures of this doorway got mine, but the description “Unidentified man in doorway” left the subject of this portrait an orphan of history.
Some dozens of photographs later in the same box, I found this one.
Eben Plimpton in doorway at Silver Lake, no date
It’s the same doorway, with the same tool leaning in the same spot against the same shingles. But is it the same unidentified man? No, this man is known, well-known in fact. And the very next photo in the box shows that they are in fact two different people.
Eben Plimpton and two men, Silver Lake in background, no date
According to his obituary in the Boston Daily Globe (4/13/1915), the “famous actor” — one of the first to move from success on the legitimate stage to vaudeville — was originally Eben Bradlee, “born in the first house west of the State House on Beacon St., Boston, Feb. 7, 1853.” Plympton (sometimes Plimpton) began acting as an amateur while working as a bookkeeper, a career that “overtaxed his strength” leading him to recuperate in California. There he took his first professional acting job in Sacramento, followed by successes in San Francisco, then back east in New York and Boston, and on to England and to Europe. After leading and supporting roles alongside “most of the distinguished stars since 1880,” Plympton died in a New York hotel of pneumonia, after nine days of illness and a longer period of poor health.
The obituary further explains why the Local History Room has these photos of Plympton: “About 1880, he established a farm home on Silver Lake…which he called ‘The Grange’.” The estate had a private gunning stand, an orchard and extensive gardens. In subsequent summers, he played farmer on his 40 acres and hosted friends from far and wide. In 1905, however, one of these friends — quite possibly the unidentified man in the doorway — had a less than pleasant stay.
Variously described as Plympton’s “confidential servant” (New-York Tribune 9/22/1905), “his dresser or his guest…[or] a man of all work about the place” (Old Colony Memorial 9/23/1905), “fastest friend” (New York Times 9/23/1905), and”best friend in the world” in the Globe obituary, Captain George Martin was born in Maine around 1845. As the Times further reported,
Martin twenty years ago was known to every seafaring man entering New York and other ports. He was always in charge of the biggest freight vessels. While ashore he met Plympton, then an actor of prominence. The sailor had accumulated a little fortune. They lived together and cooked for each other…Martin followed [Plympton] wherever he traveled, helping him in his make-up and stage dressing. For six years, Plympton has only worked six weeks of the year, spending the rest of the time usually in camping with his friend.
Why all the press for a less-than-well-known sailor? While the news stories vary in detail, the gist is that “the warmest and most intimate of friends” (Globe obituary) fell out on the night of September 13, 1905. After a day of heavy drinking, Martin purposefully left Plympton at the train station some miles from the Grange. Plympton walked home and confronted Martin. A fist fight followed, with Plympton on the losing end, “left prone on the battlefield in front of the barn” (Old Colony Memorial). Witnesses reported hearing a hysterical Plympton threaten retaliation and the sound of heavy blows. Two days later Martin lay in Mass. General Hospital unconscious from a fractured skull. A week after that, Plympton was arrested for assault with intent to kill and locked up in the Plymouth County Jail.
Within days, Plympton made his $5,000 bail, removed to Boston where he visited Martin, and told the Globe
“I will say that Capt. Martin regrets the occurrence as keenly as I do. We are still friends and will continue to be friends if he recovers.” (9/25/1905)
Martin did slowly recover. Plympton’s case was delayed repeatedly and his bond reduced. On October 19, the Globe reported that Martin had met with Plympton’s lawyer, the superintendant of the hospital and the Deputy Sheriff and
manifested a strong desire to leave the hospital and go home with Mr. Plimpton as his friend…[he] disavowed any claim on his part that Eben Plimpton was capable of any attempt to kill him.
In the end, the two men reconciled and as Plympton’s Globe obituary recounts
Martin was released from the hospital, and by invitation accompanied his “best friend in the world back to “The Grange” and the incident was closed.
93 Lake Street, 1975. Photograph by Ted Avery.
Also known as the Jonathan Holmes House and located 93 Lake Street, the Grange was razed in 2011.
Do you recall one night in June,
When sailing down Jones River,
We listened to the Bullfrog’s tune
And watched the moonbeams quiver?
I oft since then have watched the moon
But never, love, ah never, never,
Can I forget that night in June
While sailing down Jones River.
Can I forget that night in June
While sailing down Jones River.
Can I forget that night in June
While sailing down Jones River.
Can I forget that night in June
And the moonlight on Jones River
Our boat went drifting toward the Bay,
By the wharves along the river,
Those old, old wharves where the good ships lay,
In the days now gone forever.
The busy hum of toil is o’er;
On the ways no ships were standing, standing
Holmes, Cushman, Bartlett, Drew, were gone;
All silent lay The Landing.
Can I forget that night in June
When sailing down Jones River?
Can I forget that Bullfrog’s tune
And the moonlight on Jones River?
Catherine Drew Russell
It was customary in earlier days for boating parties in the river or out into the Bay, to drift and sing. Moonlight parties were especially popular. Popular tunes of the day were often sung with original words, like the above, following the general idea of the song but adapted to the mood of the party. Miss Russell was very apt at impromptu rhyming and this is one of the songs composed at the time and recalled in later years. We used the song with its original music at the meeting of the Jones River Village Club, when Miss Russell gave her Musical Reminiscences of Kingston, with different members assisting in the vocal and instrumental examples. E.F.D. [Emily Fuller Drew]
Memorial Day exercises on the Training Green, circa 1943
March 12 marks the 100 year anniversary of the first meeting of the Girl Scouts and to help the local troops celebrate, the Local History Room’s monthly exhibit shows a number of 1940s and 1960s Girl Scout artifacts, including badge sashes, pen knives and a collapsible camping cup. Stop by and take a look.
