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Winthrop Buys Passage for Ironworkers
Winthrop Buys Passage for Ironworkers
On this day in 1643, John Winthrop, Jr. paid 50 pounds for the passage of skilled ironworkers from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Initially, the men worked at the iron works that Winthrop and...
Writer Margaret Fuller Born
Writer Margaret Fuller Born
On this day in 1810, Margaret Fuller was born in Cambridge. Teacher, author, critic, philosopher, journalist, she is remembered today as a woman with a formidable intellect and a willingness to take risks. One of...
Agrippa Hull Enlists
Agrippa Hull Enlists
On this day in 1777, Agrippa Hull, a freeborn black man from the Berkshire County town of Stockbridge, signed on to serve in the Continental Army for the duration of the Revolutionary War. The 18-year-old...
Utopians Purchase Brook Farm
Utopians Purchase Brook Farm
On this day in 1841, a group of Boston-area utopians purchased Brook Farm in West Roxbury. The writer Nathaniel Hawthorne spent six months there and later wrote about his experiences in his satirical novel Blithedale...
Boston's "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald Elected to Congress
Boston's "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald Elected to Congress
On this day in 1895, a colorful Irishman from Boston's North End, nicknamed "Honey Fitz" for his charming and loquacious ways, was elected to the U.S. Congress. Ten years later, John Francis Fitzgerald returned to...
Lydia Maria Child Dies
Lydia Maria Child Dies
On this day in 1880, Lydia Maria Child, whom abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison called "the first woman in the Republic," was buried in Wayland. A successful novelist and magazine editor and the author of a...
Horatio Alger Born
Horatio Alger Born
On this day in 1832, Horatio Alger was born in Revere. The author of the rags-to-riches stories that captured the imagination of generations of American boys, Alger was always more interested in literature than in...
Poet Anne Sexton Publishes First Book
Poet Anne Sexton Publishes First Book
On this day in 1960, Massachusetts poet Anne Sexton had her first collection of poems published, To Bedlam and Part Way Back. Just before the manuscript was to go to press, she made major changes...
Crowd Gathers to Hear Writer Mary Antin
Crowd Gathers to Hear Writer Mary Antin
On this day in 1912, over 1,000 people gathered at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York to hear Boston writer Mary Antin. She had come to make a plea for more aid to support...
Gloucester Fish Companies Merge
Gloucester Fish Companies Merge
On this day in 1906, Slade Gorton and Company of Gloucester stunned the fishing industry by announcing that it would merge with three other local fishing companies. With a fleet of 55 vessels, mostly sleek...