October 27, 2015

The Mystique of the Cursed Figurehead

My name is Heather and I am the Development Associate for the Bostonian Society, but before that I was an Educator at the Old State House for several years. That is when I learned about the building's history, and the Bostonian Society’s collections.

1908.0010
My favorite object in the museum collection is the cursed figurehead, which was a gift of John Lynch to the Society in 1908.  Edward Rowe Snow, an author and nautical historian from Massachusetts, said that this figurehead was known to bring bad luck to its owners. The story of the figurehead was one of my favorites to tell on my tours around Halloween - I love dark and mysterious stories and this item’s story is interesting to me.

A figurehead is the carved figure of a person or an animal that can be found on the front of ships. This painted lady was on the bow of a ship called the Caroline that wrecked off the coast of Maine. Then she was put on a ship called the Maritana. The Maritana is a famous ship in Boston. In November 1861 she ran into some jagged rocks in Boston Harbor in what is now called the worst wreck to ever occur in Boston Harbor! The New York Times published an account of the shipwreck the day after it occurred.

The figurehead survived that wreck with no damage.

She was now deemed unlucky and no ship’s captain wanted her aboard. She was sold and placed in a shop on Lincoln’s Wharf in Boston and became a curious attraction. The wharf promptly caught on fire and burned!

Later she was donated to the Bostonian Society, who put the unlucky lass on display inside the galleries of the Old State House. A fire in 1921 started, some say, near the cursed figurehead, and yet she survived it! That was the last fire in the Old State House. The cursed figurehead is not currently on display, but she lies in wait for her next victims.

By Heather Rockwood, Development Associate

October 21, 2015

Digging deeper into the time capsule!

It's hard to believe that it has been just over a year since we discovered the 1901 time capsule in the lion statue that sits atop the Old State House! As the anniversary of the time capsule approached, I began to think about one of my favorite items from the capsule and I was curious to learn more about it.

When I was examining the items that were found in the time capsule, I was able to organize them into four categories: materials associated with the 1901 restoration of the Old State House, materials that pertained to Boston newspapers, items representing the Grand Army of the Republic, and items that related to local and national politics.  However, there was one item that didn't fit into any of these categories - a bill for tuition and one piece of music, dated January 1, 1901 and addressed to John A. Silver.  When the news picked up the story of the time capsule last year, this seemingly random document didn't get any coverage and it wasn't included in our temporary exhibit of time capsule items.

John Silver cabinet card
John Silver was well represented in the time capsule, he was listed on a parchment scroll of city employees and he was included in a group photograph of men who worked on the restoration of the Old State House.  There were also eight cabinet cards in the time capsule, including one of Silver.  Cabinet cards were a type of portraiture where a photograph was mounted on a board, which allowed the sitter to autograph the back of the portrait.  The back of Silver's cabinet card helpfully included the following inscription "Boston, Feb 20 / 1901, John Aaron Webster Silver, Deputy Superintendent, Public Buildings, City of Boston, Builder by Trade, 36 years old last December the 28th 1900." Many of our visitors have asked if we know who was responsible for assembling the time capsule.  While we don't know the answer for sure, there are few clues that lead us to make a guess. Though many men were represented in cabinet cards and published portraits, there were only four business cards in the time capsule, two for men who worked for the Boston Herald, one for Samuel Rogers, and one for John Silver.  Samuel Rogers seemed to have also included a brief biography and a roster of his G.A.R. post in the capsule.  Due to these personal items, we guessed that he was likely one of the men who assembled the contents. The inclusion of the bill of tuition made out to John Silver, along with his business card, lead us to speculate that he was also one of the men who put together the time capsule in February 1901.  The bill for tuition is a far more personal item than anything else that was found, and it's my guess that Silver tucked this random item into the capsule while he was putting other items in as well.  Or maybe it was accident and he later scoured his desk looking for the missing bill!

Bill for tuition and one piece of music, 1901
But why is this bill for tuition important?  Besides providing a clue that John Silver was one of the men who assembled the time capsule, it made me curious to learn more about the document itself and John Silver as a person.  By looking at the bill, we can see that it is for one term, beginning on October 31 and costing $15.00, and that one piece of music cost 25 cents.  The bill is issued by A. de Andria, of 45 Hemenway Street.  I checked the 1900 Boston city directory and found a listing for Alcide T. De Andria, who had an occupation listing of music teacher.

It seems likely that this would be a tuition bill for one of Silver's children, but confirming that would require additional research.  As such, I searched the 1900 Federal Census and found a listing for a John A. W. Silver, with a birth date and occupation that matched the man I was researching.  From the census, I learned that he was born in Maine, his father was born in England and his mother was born in Pennsylvania.  His wife, Cora, was born in New Hampshire in June 1862.  John and Cora were married in 1884, and the census also confirmed what I suspected, that they had one son, Earl, born in November 1888.  As a twelve year old at the time that the tuition bill was issued, it seems very likely that the music lessons were for him to study under Alcide de Andria.

My co-worker joked that this additional information about the Silver family has made "history come alive!" and I have to agree with her.  Learning more about the men who assembled the time capsule reminds us that these were real people, who had families, went to work, supported their children's extracurricular activities, and essentially, were not all that different from Bostonians today. October is Archives Month, designated as such by the Society of American Archivists to raise awareness about the value of archives.  Celebrate by using primary sources to learn more about your own family history, or by delving deeper into a topic that interests you.  I might be slightly biased, but I believe that it's really through archival materials that we can connect to history to make it truly come alive.

By Elizabeth Roscio, Library and Archives Manager

October 6, 2015

Out of storage and into the library!

Like most museums, our collection includes a number of beautiful paintings that spend most of their time in storage.  As a way to share these items with the public, we recently decided to move three paintings over to the library!

View of Boston Harbor (1884.0209)
One of the paintings that is now hanging in the library is View of Boston Harbor by John White Allen Scott (1815 - 1907).  Painted in 1853, this painting has been part of the Boston Society's collection since 1884.  It is an oil painting, but was originally done with the intention of being engraved. Scott was a Boston painter and lithographer, known for portraits, landscape, and marine images. He was a friend of fellow artist Fitz Henry Lane (also known as Fitz Hugh Lane). According to The Handbook of the Bostonian Society, Scott and Lane "served an apprenticeship together in the Pendleton shop, and were partners from 1845 to 1847 in a lithographic firm of there own."  (The Pendleton shop refers to the lithographic print shop that was run by brothers William and John Pendleton.)  In the 1853 Boston city directory, Scott is listed as an artist with studio space at 265 Washington Street, but he had previously held space in the Tremont Temple, until it was damaged in a fire in April 1852.

View of Boston Harbor is a large painting that depicts Boston's waterfront in the mid 1800s.  It shows a bustling seaport with horse-drawn carts moving merchandise up and down Broad Street.  A group of men are shown on scaffolding in the right foreground of the image, constructing a new building out of bricks.  Only a few of the buildings in the painting are identified by name, one has a sign reading "Arch Wharf Sail Loft" and the other reads "George H. Gray and Danforth Hardware."  Broad Street was laid out and named in June 1805 and it still exists today, but over the years it has been expanded and cut in places.  This painting provides insight into how the street looked in the 1850s, and the building under construction gives a hint to the changes yet to come to the street.

Our newly refurbished library, with Silva's painting on view
The other paintings on display in the library are Schooner Passing Castle Island by Francis Augustus Silva and Sovereign of the Seas by James Edward Buttersworth. With new items on the walls, we decided that it was about time to freshen up the library a bit. Thanks to a generous donation from one of our long-time members, we were able to paint the walls, install new carpet, and mount special UV window shades that will protect the paintings from light damage.  We're excited about the changes in our library, and hope that our visitors and researchers enjoy the new space as much as we do.

By Elizabeth Roscio, Library and Archives Manager