Category: North End History
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Old North’s Mini Courses: #5 – the North End, a Historic Neighborhood in Context
Has it been awhile since your high school history classes? Have you been watching too many historically inaccurate movies or TV shows? Or maybe you’re just looking for some old-fashioned intellectual stimulation? Then look no further than Old North’s Mini Courses! Each month we will offer a new mini-course on a variety of topics for all…
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Bittersweet Associations: Old North, Cacao Smuggling, and Slave Trading in 18th C. America
On the night of May 31, 1743, terror struck the Rising Sun. As the ship tracked eastward off the coast of Suriname, three sailors snuck into the ship’s cabin and attacked the people sleeping inside. Blood curdling screams echoed out of the cabin, across the ship, and onto the deck above. Two of the victims, captain Newark…
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Old North’s Mini Courses: #4 – Maritime Mania
Has it been a while since your high school history classes? Have you been watching too many historically inaccurate movies or TV shows? Or maybe you’re just looking for some old-fashioned intellectual stimulation? Then look no further than Old North’s Mini-Courses! Each month we will offer a new mini-course on a variety of topics for all…
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Boston’s Smallpox Epidemic: 18th C. Quarantine and Inoculation
Boston in the early 1720s was a town in the midst of an epidemic. Brought to Boston on a ship from the carribean in early 1721, the disease referred to as Smallpox had swept through the town. By 1722 over half of the city’s populace of 11,000 had fallen ill to Smallpox Boston in the…
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Old North’s Mini Courses: #3 – Beneath Old North, or, Digging up Stuff Is Cool
Has it been awhile since your high school history classes? Have you been watching too many historically inaccurate movies or TV shows? Or maybe you’re just looking for some old-fashioned intellectual stimulation? Then look no further than Old North’s Mini Courses! Each month we will offer a new mini-course on a variety of topics for all…
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Old North’s Mini Courses: #2 – Preservation at Work, an Insider’s Look
Has it been a while since your high school history classes? Have you been watching too many historically inaccurate movies or TV shows? Or maybe you’re just looking for some old-fashioned intellectual stimulation? Then look no further than Old North’s Mini-Courses! Each month we will offer a new mini-course on a variety of topics for all…
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Feature: Old North on Place Based Boston
This month we were grateful to Place Based Boston for asking us to share a reflection on how Jared Hardesty’s recent research findings about a colonial-era smuggling ring, the slave trade, and Old North has impacted our site, how we talk about our history, and how we interact with visitors and the public. Below see…
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The Messenger | The 1919 Molasses Flood: Destruction, Immigration, and Active Citizenship in Boston’s North End
At 12:45 pm, on January 15, 1919, a tsunami-like wave swept down Commercial Street in Boston’s North End neighborhood. This giant wave of molasses took the lives of 21 individuals while injuring 150 others. “This was one of the worst catastrophes which has visited the City of Boston in my remembrance … Cold molasses has…
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1st Michigan Colonial Fife and Drum Corps
Every year for the past three decades, the annual Lantern Ceremony at the Old North Church & Historic Site has begun with a musical kick-off courtesy of the 1st Michigan Colonial Fife and Drum Corps. This unique and dedicated group of musicians perform colonial music using instruments made with 18th-century techniques while wearing period-accurate uniforms. The…
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Wooden Walls and Waterborne Wealth