By Amanda M. Norton, Adams Papers

On September 17, 1830, Boston celebrated the bicentennial of its settlement. Such a noteworthy occasion would hardly be complete without the presence of one of the state’s leading families, particularly a former president. Thus, John Quincy Adams was invited to participate in the commemoration events held in Boston that day. Before meeting with the other members of the parade at the State House, John stopped by to see if his son Charles Francis Adams was in his Boston office and would join him. Charles, however, was not there but at his home in Medford. He reported in his diary entry for the day, “As this was the day destined for the Celebration of the Anniversary of the settlement of Boston, and about to produce a tremendous consequent fuss I thought it would be expedient for me to have nothing whatever to do with it. I have a great horror of Crowds, and if I make up my mind to attend public days always have cause to repent it.”

A grand procession of city and state officials as well as Boston residents marched through Boston Common and down Tremont and State Street to Old South Church. There the President of Harvard University and former Boston mayor, Josiah Quincy III, gave an oration that John Quincy Adams considered, “worthy of the subject and received with universal approbation” and a number of songs were sung in celebration of the city. The music included a rewrite of Great Britain’s “God Save the King” with new lyrics by Rev. John Pierpont and Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.” The group processed back to the State House. That evening, fireworks were set off over the common and John Quincy attended a party hosted by Lieutenant Governor Thomas Winthrop.

The momentous occasion also included the first hints of a historic event on the horizon—Adams’s election to the House of Representatives. Before returning to Quincy for the evening, a number of gentlemen at the party approached Adams to discuss an article which ran in the September 6, 1830 issue of the Boston Courier, which suggested that Adams be nominated for the Plymouth congressional district of which Quincy was a part. John Quincy was initially dismissive of the idea: “As the Editor of the Paper has been uniformly hostile to me, I supposed this nomination was made with the same Spirit, and did not imagine it was seriously thought of by any one.” Serious it was though, and two months later, President John Quincy Adams was representative-elect Adams—the first and only president to serve in Congress after his presidency.

By Dan Hinchen

Welcome to my new series here on the Beehive: “Boston by Broadside.” Here I will use examples from the MHS’ collection of broadsides to show various views of our fair city as it used to be. 

For the first foray out into Boston-that-was, we begin in Charlestown. This first stop is just to make sure that everyone is physically up to the challenge of navigating the city by broadside. So, let us begin on Washington Street at Prof. G. H. Boulet’s Gymnasium, Fencing, Sparring, and Pistol Academy.

While your intrepid guide considers himself to be in passable physical condition, he realizes that his training thus far is lacking in many elements, most notably the swordplay and precision with firearms. There will need to be more work done here in the future.

But now, onto the next stop! Check back soon to see where we land!

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

Three weeks ago, I introduced you to John Egbert Jansen and Margaret A. Wisner of Pine Bush, N.Y. Their papers form part of the Hall-Baury-Jansen family papers and include overlapping diaries for the years 1858 and 1859. One of my colleagues here at the MHS asked me what happened to John and Margaret after 1859, so I did a little more digging. 

Unfortunately, none of the rest of the diaries in the collection overlap. We have one more diary kept by Margaret in 1862, but the ink has faded so much that many of the entries are illegible. John kept five more diaries, two before his marriage to Margaret (1860, 1861) and three after (1873, 1875, 1878). So we have to rely almost entirely on him for further details. 

John’s diary entries are short and cryptic. He visited Margaret and thought of her often, and it seems his feelings were reciprocated, but something was apparently delaying their marriage. The fact that we have only one side of the story heightens the mystery and the pathos. We see John pining for Margaret, “living in hopes,” wanting to say things to her but not daring, and parting from her in “affecting” scenes, but her voice is silent. Here are some excerpts from John’s 1861 diary: 

Many wishes I have, but must not express them now, and some inferences to make from former actions. (17 Mar. 1861)

Saw some one in want of sleep as well as myself. I have to think quite little of what I’ve heard lately. (28 Apr. 1861)

The last attempt. […] Not at all afraid. (26 May 1861)

Thinking considerable as to what I must do. (1 July 1861)

Saw one in Church looking sad and lonely. Sorry for that. (24 Nov. 1861)

What the conflict was, I can only guess. There was some discord during John’s visit to the Wisners on 14 Mar. 1861: “Some apparently disappointed in hearing my oppinions of Intemperance as applied to my case.” The day before, he had written: “At home in the evening on account of shame perhaps or the want of a place to go. I dont know what it will amount to. I’ll have to stop after while I guess.” John did take the occasional drink. Did Margaret’s family disapprove? Or was it something else? All we know for sure is that harsh words were spoken, and someone was “very much put out or disgusted.” John felt the sting of “people passing remarks on and about me,” but thought he was “not so bad as I might be.”

His love for Margaret is unmistakable. He referred to her tenderly as “Maggie” and even, in one entry, as his “duckee.” Sometimes he just used a plus (“+”) sign to indicate her, as on 18 Aug. 1861: “Retired early, but could not sleep thinking of the goodness and other qualities of +.” As the year neared its end, with the prospect of their marriage still dim, John was glum: “Dark and gloomy out. Myself dull and lonely. Wonder if any one is thinking of me? Doubts arising.” But on New Year’s Eve, he clung to hope: “As the clock strikes 12 I was happy and alone and may I next New Year’s eve be the same except the alone.”

As I looked through John’s 1861 diary more carefully, I realized that Margaret was not entirely silent after all. At some point, she also read the volume and couldn’t resist adding her own sly comments after some entries. For example, on 7 Oct. 1861, John described an outing with some friends: “Bad companie but hard spoiling me as I am so innocent??” Margaret added a playful: “Poor boy.” (The question marks were also probably written by her.)

We have no diary kept by John in 1862, so we switch to Margaret’s point of view. Her diary for that year, though faded, does contain some legible entries, but their meaning is just as elusive as John’s. The couple had frequent “discussions” and “consultations.” When John visited on 12 Nov. 1862, with nothing decided, the two of them just “sat & sat hoping things would be right.” The wedding was put off at least once, and the next day John was nearly at the end of his rope: “John E. here & to tea. Quite cross when he left. To bad. To bad.”

Finally, on 17 Dec. 1862, John and Margaret were married. Margaret’s entry for that date reads: “Memorable day. Promised much, before many witnesses. Left with My husband […]” John’s later diaries describe the life of a typical New York farm family. The couple had three children: Lewis Wisner Jansen (1864-1925), Elsie (Jansen) Vernooy (1866-1949), and Lt. Col. Thomas Egbert Jansen (1869-1959).

Margaret died in 1923, and John in 1929. They, their three children, and other Jansen and Wisner family members are buried in New Prospect Cemetery in Pine Bush, N.Y.

By Bonnie McBride

While our mission statement here at the Massachusetts Historical Society proclaims that we hold materials dedicated to the study of the history of Massachusetts and the United States, we also hold materials that may be of interest to scholars researching other countries. As I am returning on a trip to Norway this summer, I decided one day to search and see what manuscripts (if any) we hold related to that country.

I was especially interested in reading about other travelers’ impressions and thoughts on the country, and so I chose to look through Edwin F. Atkins travel diary of what seems to be his first solo trip through Europe, at the age of 22 in 1872. He starts off with writing of how hard it was to say goodbye to his mother and sisters in Arlington as he left for Boston, first traveling by train to Providence and then onward to New York City, where he boarded a steamer bound for Plymouth in the United Kingdom. After a rough day at sea he writes “I think that I never again will travel by sea while anything remains to be seen in my own country.” Looking closer at the Atkins family papers, I did learn that Edwin did travel abroad again, many times to Cuba to visit his plantations there.  Apparently he either got used to sea travel, or decided that some discomfort was worth the rewards of travel. 

Reading through his diary, I started to make connections between a travel diary of the past and how we keep track of journeys today – often through a blog or social media. Similarities end there though, because travel journals in the 19th century were not intended to be shared in the same public way a travel blog is shared in the 21st century. A diary was kept mainly for yourself, to remind you of places you visited, how the food was, and to record interesting tidbits about your day. Reading each page of Edwin’s diary puts me in the mind of someone recording their thoughts so he could then recall what happened each day when choosing to share the trip with other people. For example, most of his daily entries are similar to this entry from 10 August 1872 “At Christiania [which is now Oslo, the capital of Norway] we went to Victoria House, a very good house we had a nice room and a good supper.” He was not one to speak in superlatives, often just noting the “fine scenery” and “clear weather.”

Because of his usually reserved writing, when he writes in great detail I knew he was writing of something special. On 20 August 1872, Edwin is on a steamer sailing through the Sognefjord, which he noted had “scenery of the finest kind.” He decided to spend the night sleeping on the deck: “We made a landing which woke me up; we were among scenery of the grandest – snow covered mountains just above us; from here we ran to Andal down a fjord where the rocks rose some two and three thousand feet right out of the water. Coming back through the same branch of the fjord, we entered another leading to Gudvangen more beautiful than the other with many beautiful waterfalls coming down from the rocks above more small villages…” Having been on a very similar ferry ride through the same fjord, I can completely understand his awe at the beauty surrounding him.

Edwin’s journal goes on to detail his travels around Norway and then into Sweden, and abruptly ends upon his entry into Germany. His last full entry is dated 2 September 1872 and while the next page holds the date 3 September, nothing else is written. I’d like to imagine that Edwin, like so many other travelers (myself included), was so caught up in his travels that he had no time to jot down his memories. If you are interested in reading travel diaries from faraway places, be sure to check out ABIGAIL to discover our collections here at MHS!

By Amanda M. Norton, Adams Papers

This August marks the 250th anniversary of the publication of the first part John Adams’s “A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law.” This rather arcane title can obscure the profound message that his essay brought to that colonial resistance to the Stamp Act that had been imposed on the colonies in the spring of 1765 by the British Parliament. In this four-part series published in the Boston Gazette from August to October 1765 in the flush of opposition to this new tax, Adams attacked the Stamp Act from a different angle than simply opposition to “taxation without representation.” It was not merely the fact of a tax, but what Britain taxed: “it seems very manifest from the [Stamp Act] itself, that a design is form’d to strip us in a great measure of the means of knowledge, by loading the Press, the Colleges, and even an Almanack and a News-Paper, with restraints and duties.”

Adams, ever the lawyer, looked back over history and examined the two major legal systems that had ruled much of Europe up to the modern age—the canon law, the law of the Roman Catholic Church, and the feudal law, the law of medieval governments. In both of these legal systems, Adams saw a systematic attempt to keep knowledge from the people. In the first part of his essay, he explained how “the great” worked “to wrest from the populace, as they are contemptuously called, the knowledge of their rights and wrongs, and the power to assert the former or redress the latter. I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government—Rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws—Rights derived from the great legislator of the universe.” In England, an alliance between these two systems had formed and it “was this great struggle, that peopled America. It was not religion alone, as is commonly supposed; but it was a love of universal Liberty, and an hatred, a dread, an horror of the infernal confederacy, before described, that projected, conducted, and accomplished the settlement of America.”

In the final installment of his essay, Adams’s rhetoric soars as he calls for Americans to look into and stand up for their rights. They should use this moment when the British attempted to subjugate America and oppose their efforts through education. “Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution. Let them all become attentive to the grounds and principles of government, ecclesiastical and civil.” And Adams argued that just as the reigns of James I and Charles I produced some of the greatest British statesmen, “The prospect, now before us, in America, ought in the same manner to engage the attention of every man of learning to matters of power and of right, that we may be neither led nor driven blindfolded to irretrievable destruction.”

John Adams’s continued commitment to education as an essential component in a free society was evident in his draft of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which included a chapter specifically calling for “The Encouragement of Literature” within the commonwealth.

If you want to learn more about the Stamp Act and the coming of the Revolution in Boston, a couple weeks are remaining to view the MHS exhibit, God Save the People! From the Stamp Act to Bunker Hill.

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

The Hall-Baury-Jansen family papers at the MHS include ten small diaries kept in Pine Bush, N.Y. between 1858 and 1878. Most of them belonged to a young farmer named John Egbert Jansen, but three were written in another, unidentified hand. By checking the diaries against each other, I was able to confirm that the second diarist was John’s wife, Margaret A. (Wisner) Jansen.

John and Margaret weren’t married until 1862, but both kept diaries in 1858 and 1859, during their courtship. A side-by-side comparison of these two years makes for some fun reading. Both John and Margaret wrote in their diaries every day, and while the entries are short, repetitive, and often dry, taken as a whole, they give us a glimpse into the couple’s relationship as it develops. And it’s hard to resist speculating on what some of the more elusive entries mean.

At the beginning of 1858, Margaret was a lonely young woman of 17. She disliked the days she spent at home alone and was disappointed when she received no letters or visits. Some of her early diary entries are forlorn: “I do wonder if any body likes me.” Her first reference to John comes on 21 January 1858: “To tea with J.E. Nice visit.” His entry for that date doesn’t mention her, but that was apparently the day he decided to “quit chewing tobacco.” (Coincidence? Hmm.) A week later, Margaret wrote that John “called for a singing book.” The corresponding entry in John’s diary discusses other matters before noting that he “made a call.” This circumspect little phrase was almost invariably the way he described his visits to Margaret.

The relationship of the young couple was moving along, and when he visited, she often had “a real funny time,” while he enjoyed himself “very much” or “finely.” He even helped with chores around her house. It’s possible that Margaret and John had known each other for years, if not their whole lives, considering how small the town of Pine Bush was. The Wisners and the Jansens ran in the same social circles and attended the same church and many of the same events. These included singing school, bible class, lectures, and parties. On 15 March 1858, Margaret attended a party at the home of John’s aunt and stayed until the wee hours of the morning. Her entry for that date reads: “Went to a party to Mrs. Jane Jansens. Had a splendid time. Saw ___. Came home about four A.M.” He wrote more succinctly that he “staid all night.”

John began calling at Margaret’s house more frequently, often multiple times a week. She now expected his visits and  made a note in her diary when he didn’t come. But of course their relationship, like all others, had its rocky patches. Margaret sometimes doubted that her feelings were reciprocated. Once she complained: “I think I may easily say I am thinking of those who think not of me & perhaps care not for me. I have one in my mind.” Other days, she was more dreamy and sanguine and “had some very pleasant thoughts.” One wistful entry just trails off: “Freligh Lyon called. I wish – ” And she still had those downcast days: “Did various little things. Took a little walk in the evening. Here on the rock I post this thinking, looking, all alone.”

If only she could have read John’s diaries! While he was more subdued in expression and less confessional in tone, he definitely thought she was “pleasant” and “agreeable.” He wrote happily about joining her and her friends on fishing trips and picnics. He still referred to her coyly as “a companion” or just by initials or a blank line, but we can use her diary to confirm that he did, in fact, mean her. And she might have been interested to know how disappointed he was the day she didn’t attend church and he felt “some what forgotten.” The end of the year made him philosophical: “Where will I be next year this time? I would like to know. I do not know! Do you?”

At the beginning of 1859, there was trouble in paradise, and the two different perspectives sometimes present a startling contrast. John thought his 1 Mar. 1859 visit to Margaret was “pleasant,” but she wrote: “J.E. called. Was much out of humor.” (I don’t know if she meant John or herself.) On another visit, she thought he was “very anxious to get away. Can’t say why.” He described some of the calls he made to her that spring as “miserable,” even “disgusting.” Neither wrote explicitly about their problems, but Margaret did confess that “one will get provoked occasionally.”

Whatever their differences, the couple rode them out, and their diaries contain many endearing, if terse, references to each other. She wished his visits lasted longer: “Johnie called, one minute. Always in a hurry.” For that matter, so did he: “Made a call. Sorry could not stay. Sorry to leave indeed.” He began to call her “Maggie” near the end of 1859, and her lonely days seemed to be a thing of the past. Her diary entry for 6 August 1859 reads, in part: “This is a good world but some mighty quear people in it.” Along the side of the page, she added, apparently later: “Some very nice good ones too.”

Reading John and Margaret’s diaries side-by-side also paints a picture of a typical man and woman of the time. While she spent days cleaning, sewing, and doing other housework, he was working on his farm, haying, logging, etc. It’s a rare treat to see two lives lined up so perfectly, each diary fleshing out and enriching the other to create a fuller picture…not to mention giving us a little peek at what these two young people really thought of each other!

By Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

Today we rejoin our anonymous female diarist as she journeys down the Nile in the winter of 1914-1915. You can read previous installments of this series here (introduction), here (Cairo to Aysut), here (Aysut to Asswan) and here (Asswan to Abu Simbel).

Image: “The Oriental Lounge of the Cataract Hotel at Assuan,” from Douglas Sladen, Queer Things About Egypt (1910)

In today’s entries, our diarist tours various sites on the border of Egypt and Sudan, in an area today bordering (and in some cases subsumed by) the Lake Nasser/Lake Nubia reservoir. In one case, visiting the Temple Kalabsha, she would have seen the temple in its original location nearly half a century before it was moved to accommodate the rising waters of the lake as the Aswan Dam was constructed (between 1958-1971).

On December 15th our narrator departs the steamer on which she has been traveling and takes the train north to Asswan once more, where she checks into the Cataract Hotel at which she will spend her Christmas holidays. These entries continue to illustrate how, as an American tourist, she experienced the country through which she traveled, and the people she encountered there.

Dec. 11. A.M. wrote post cards & at lunch we arrived at Wadi Halfa. Went on shore after lunch & walked around, then went up to train and saw people off for Khartoum. Went to P.O. for stamps. After tea went ashore again with dragoman & walked through [illegible phrase]. Saw Nubian village & then Sudanese on the desert.

Dec. 12. Had early breakfast & left in small boat at 8:30. Miss M. did not go. Were rowed across first to shore & then towed along for about an hour’s ride. Then landed & got onto donkeys & rode over the desert to the rock of Abu Seer, 1 ½ hours. Went up on rocks & saw two [illegible word] shoot the rapids. Rode back to river bank & had lunch in a little hut there. Then visited Temple of [illegible phrase] took boats again & were rowed back to our steamer in time for tea. After it wrote a letter. Fine full moon.

Image: “The Rock of Abusir” from Amelia B. Edwards, A Thousand Miles Up the Nile (1890)

Dec. 13. Had early breakfast & at 8:30 went ashore in row boats to see rock temple of Sebel Addeli 4 papyrus columns with bud capitals — used as a Christian church. Soon after leaving this we passed Abu Simbel again. Wrote till noon time. Sailed along all the afternoon.

Dec. 14. Reached Kalabsha just at breakfast & immediately after went ashore — a large group of [visitors?] – went to rock temple of Beit-El Wali, a vestibule [illegible phrase]. Only side walls of vestibule standing, interesting historical reliefs. Some coloring in the hall & sanctuary. Then went back to river, took boats & rowed into temple of Kalabsha, which is partly submerged — never finished — has [illegible phrase] rooms — 1st vestibule has [illegible word] columns with floral capitals, the roof is gone. The other 3 rooms have walls, preserved reliefs with vivid coloring. Arrived at Shellal at noon. Most of people took 3pm train to Asswan. After they had gone Miss M., Miss Gillender & I had a boat & went around to Philae & back for tea & stayed on boat overnight.

Dec. 15. Left Prince Abbas* after an early breakfast at 7.30 & took 8.30 train to Asswan going to Cataract Hotel to get room. Then walked round to steamer “Arabia” and made a call on the Phelps’, stepping into Cook’s on the way. After lunch lay down & slept, then  sat on my balcony & watched sunset then went down & wrote till dinner. Talked with two English ladies in evening.

In our next installment, we’ll see how our diarist’s routines change (as well as stay the same) once she is no longer traveling daily from place to place but instead residing in a fixed location with a revolving cast of European guests.

*The first mention of it in this diary, I believe Prince Abbas may be the name of the boat our diarist had been staying on.

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

This July 4 marked the 151^st anniversary of an interesting political protest by local businessman Joseph Story Fay. His protest provoked heated debate in the Boston newspapers and had professional ramifications for Fay, even months later.

Fay was apparently a Peace Democrat during the Civil War, or what some called a “Copperhead” (as in, the snake). This subset of Democrats supported the Union, but wanted an end to the war through negotiated peace with the Confederacy. At their National Convention in Chicago in Aug. 1864, the Democrats nominated General George B. McClellan to unseat President Lincoln. Their platform read, in part:

[…] after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity of war-power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities […]

It’s not hard to imagine what the Republicans thought of that! The Boston Evening Transcript, a pro-Lincoln newspaper, tore into the Copperheads in every issue published that election season. If McClellan won the presidency, the paper editorialized, “compromise and concession to traitors will be the policy of the new administration.” The paper ran stories of rebels cheering McClellan’s nomination and routinely implied that the Copperheads celebrated Confederate victories.

The Peace Democrats argued that the war wasn’t just destructive to the Union, but to the Constitution. They railed against the violations of civil liberties perpetrated by Lincoln’s administration. The spur to Fay’s protest on 4 July 1864 was the suspension of habeas corpus in the case of a group of Illinois Copperheads who had been arrested and detained in a military prison without due process of law. Fay chose Independence Day to make his stand. He flew an American flag at half mast outside his home in Woods Hole, Mass., and attached a note:

The submission of Americans to this & other such cases, and to the suppression of free speech & of a free press without protest or complaint forms a strong & strange contrast with the Spirit of ’76. Our flag is no longer a protection & it droops its folds in sorrow.

There’s some dispute about what exactly happened next, but all accounts agree that a group of people objecting to Fay’s protest confronted him at his house. Fay warned them off, armed with a rifle. His youngest daughter Sarah, about 8 years old at the time, wrote later (her note is visible on the image above): “I remember my father going out on the piazza with his new .15 Shooter repeating rifle – a crowd of men around the flagpole, my father’s stern voice & then being bustled in & up to the nursery out of sight.”

Thankfully no one was hurt, but the incident would come back to bite Fay two months later. After he presided at a pro-McClellan rally at Faneuil Hall in Boston on 17 Sep. 1864, the Transcript printed a letter from an unnamed person reminding readers about Fay’s earlier “dishonor” and “insult” to the flag. The Democratic Boston Courier supported him, but the Transcript was unimpressed: 

The Courier defends and applauds Mr. Fay for putting the American flag at half mast on the Fourth of July, and for threatening to shoot anybody who interfered “to alter the position of the flag.” […] If the party to which they belong gets into power they may have the consolation of seeing the American flag permanently at half mast, with Jeff. Davis, pistol in hand, threatening to shoot anybody who “alters its position.”

Fay wrote to the Transcript to defend himself and his patriotism. His letter was published in full, but with unflattering commentary. The paper assumed the guilt of the Charleston “traitors” and the necessity of their detention, criticized Fay’s arrogance, and called him out for hypocrisy by rattling off a litany of abuses of power by his party, the Democrats. Fay’s protest was a “desecration,” the paper said, and not the act of a “true gentleman.” 

The flagpole issue would rear its ugly head again two months later, when Fay was denied a position on the Committee of Arrangements of the Boston Board of Trade, set up to honor the captain and crew of the U.S.S. Kearsarge. The Transcript (who else?) wrote, somewhat gleefully, on 11 Nov. 1864: “Mr. Fay’s friends make a great mistake in constantly crowding him before the public. He has damaged his political party and his family name, brought discredit upon the fair fame of our State, and should retire from the public view for the remainder of his days.” One of his detractors dubbed him “Half Mast Fay.”

 Fay resigned from the Board of Trade in a printed circular letter dated 14 Nov. 1864. But he was not without defenders among his fellow businessmen. George B. Carhart, president of the New York and New Haven Railroad Company, wrote to Fay that his critics were “fanatics,” and abolitionist Amos Adams Lawrence also sent him an optimistic letter of support.

Joseph Story Fay was no stranger to controversy. He had lived in Savanna, Georgia, during the antebellum years and often sparred with newspaper editors there. He’d once had to refute public accusations that he was an abolitionist. (Not only wasn’t he an abolitionist, he was a slave owner!) In the case of the Woods Hole flagpole, he never wavered or apologized. As he declared in his circular letter:

I trust I shall never live to be recreant to my opposition to wrong acts, for it is above party or politics. […] I feel that I have a right to mourn over any submission to such violations of personal liberty as brought on our war for Independence. What is our nationality, unless that is its spirit? For what are we fighting to-day?

Joseph Story Fay’s papers form part of the Fay-Mixter papers at the MHS.

By Brendan Kieran, Reader Services

For my first blog post for the Beehive, I decided to look beyond the major political and social names to see what the collections here could tell me about life for “everyday” people in Massachusetts. In my search, I came across the Robert E. Grant Diaries. These diaries, kept, between 1901 and 1930 by a Boston police officer, provide opportunities for research into a variety of events and developments that took place in the city during those decades, such as the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and executions. While Grant’s entries are usually brief and direct, they chronicle the career of a person who spent three decades experiencing urban life at the ground level. As such, they could be of potential interest to a variety of researchers studying early-twentieth century urban history.

One interesting topic covered in the Grant diaries is Prohibition, including the police raids conducted during that period. For example, in an entry from Friday, 15 February 1924, he writes that “5000 lbs of sugar was seized,” following a mention of the “Largest Still Seized.” A newspaper clipping describing four raids that had recently occurred (and mentioning Grant’s name) is attached to this entry. This account captures the pride Grant must have felt on that day; it also serves as a snapshot of Prohibition-era Boston and the actions taken by law enforcement to enforce bans on alcohol. This story is not the only one of its kind described in Grant’s diaries, so there are certainly opportunities for further research into this topic contained in these pages.

Grant also writes briefly about the Boston Police Strike of 1919. On Tuesday, 9 September 1919, he writes:

After rollcall at 5:45 PM, Patrolman Buckley informed the Captain that they refused to go on duty & twelve of them said the same they were told to leave all property belonging to the Department at the desk which they did & walked out. At 11:15 PM patrol Downey who did not join the union reported to this station that he refused to go on duty on morning watch & he turned in his property & walked out.

While Grant’s coverage of the police strike is brief, the MHS does hold other materials that offer some more details about the strike and the climate of the city during the strike. For instance, Dates, Data and Ditties: Tour of Duty, A Company, 11^th Regiment Infantry, Massachusetts State Guard, During the Strike of the Boston Police, Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen, printed for members of the A Company in the aftermath of the strike, provides insight into the activities of the soldiers deployed to patrol the city during the strike. The book details incidents ranging from the violent, such as attempted assaults against women, to the mundane, such as giving directions to pedestrians at South Station.

In-depth studies of the strike help provide context for these materials. In A City in Terror, Francis Russell analyzes the context for the strike, the major players and events, and the aftermath of the strike.

The Grant diaries are an excellent example of the wide variety of research possibilities contained within the collections at the MHS. Researchers are welcome to visit the library and explore these opportunities.