Beacon Street Diary

Looking back on New Haven's early history

We've become pretty big fans of historian Francis J. Bremer over the past few years. As part of the celebrations for the 375th anniversary of the founding of New Haven, Connecticut, Bremer led a historical walking tour this past Saturday to share his knowledge about the city's religious founder, John Davenport, its civil leader, Theophilus Eaton, and the colorful history of its early days.

There is an entertaining description of his talk in the New Haven Independent, including prosecutions of heresy and witchcraft, and controversy over infant baptisms.

"One could imagine him [Davenport] being a 17th-century televangelist if had this technology," Bremer quipped.

If you'd like to know more about John Davenport, take a look at Bremer's latest book, Building a New Jerusalem: John Davenport, a Puritan in Three Worlds.

 

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photograph courtesy of the New Haven Independent

Reminder -- Church anniversary workshop is coming

UPDATE: Due to low registration, this event has been cancelled. We are currently considering offering a more informal event later in the year.

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Your church anniversary is coming and the Congregational Library can help you make a difference. Learn to research and tell your unique history for maximum impact. Energize your church members and your greater community with your stories. Create a treasure for present and future generations.

Presenters:

• Bonnie Hurd Smith – Keynote speaker
  acclaimed historian, author, and marketer
• Dr. J. Mary Luti – Liturgy and Worship Services
  teacher, vibrant and creative liturgical leader currently at Andover Newton Theological Seminary
• Rob Cooper & Pam Pacelli – Film & Video
  Verissima Productions, award-winning documenters of historical events and stories of individuals & beloved places
• Peggy Bendroth – Writing Your Church History
  historian, author, and executive director of the Congregational Library
• Jessica Steytler – Basics of Church Records Stewardship
  archivist of the Congregational Library
• Claudette Newhall – Church Librarians Roundtable
  librarian of the Congregational Library

$65 per person, includes lunch

Take advantage of your church's membership benefits by bringing up to two free attendees. If your church doesn't have a membership, sign up for one now.

Download the registration form.
Registration deadline: Saturday, March 9th

Saturday, March 16th
9:30 am - 2:30 pm

First Congregational Church of Shrewsbury
19 Church Road
Shrewsbury, MA 01545

Church anniversary workshop

Your church anniversary is coming and the Congregational Library can help you make a difference. Learn to research and tell your unique history for maximum impact. Energize your church members and your greater community with your stories. Create a treasure for present and future generations.

Presenters:

• Bonnie Hurd Smith – Keynote speaker
  acclaimed historian, author, and marketer
• Dr. J. Mary Luti – Liturgy and Worship Services
  teacher, vibrant and creative liturgical leader currently at Andover Newton Theological Seminary
• Rob Cooper & Pam Pacelli – Film & Video
  Verissima Productions, award-winning documenters of historical events and stories of individuals & beloved places
• Peggy Bendroth – Writing Your Church History
  historian, author, and executive director of the Congregational Library
• Jessica Steytler – Basics of Church Records Stewardship
  archivist of the Congregational Library
• Claudette Newhall – Church Librarians Roundtable
  librarian of the Congregational Library

$65 per person, includes lunch

Take advantage of your church's membership benefits by bringing up to two free attendees. If your church doesn't have a membership, sign up for one now.

Download the registration form.

Saturday, March 16th
9:30 am - 2:30 pm

First Congregational Church of Shrewsbury
19 Church Road
Shrewsbury, MA 01545

Local author event -- Eve LaPlante at Hingham Public Library

You may be familiar with author and historian Eve LaPlante from her book about Samuel Sewall, Salem Witch Judge, which was featured at one of the first installments of our Brown Bag Lunch series back in 2008. Now she has two more books coming out, both focused on members of the Alcott family. She'll be speaking about them at the Hingham Public Library this coming Sunday.

Afternoon with the Author: Eve LaPlante

The first "Afternoon with the Author" of the new year takes place on Sunday, January 13, at 3 p.m., when Eve LaPlante visits the library to introduce two simultaneously published books: Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother and My Heart Is Boundless: Writings of Abigail May Alcott.

Louisa May Alcott was the most successful author of her time, earning considerably more than any of her male contemporaries. Her classic Little Women has never been out of print since its release nearly 150 years ago. Biographers have consistently attributed Louisa's uncommon success to the influence of her father, the outspoken idealist Bronson Alcott. Any influence Abigail May Alcott might have had on her daughter's progressive thinking and independent spirit went largely unremarked.

Eve LaPlante, a descendant of the May family, has just published two books that explode the perception of Abigail as a self-effacing housewife. Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother, is a dual biography that draws from newly uncovered diaries, letters, and personal papers to reveal Abigail in all her complexity. In this telling, Louisa’s real-life "Marmee" forms the intellectual and emotional center of her daughter’s world. Abigail, whose difficult life both inspired and served as warning to her daughters, pushed Louisa to excel at writing and to fulfill her unconventional dreams.

An Afternoon with the Author is part of a free series presented in partnership with Buttonwood Books and designed to connect writers with readers.

Please join us for coffee 15 minutes before the start of the program.

Sunday, January 13
3 p.m.

For more details, take a look at the event page on the Hingham Public Library website.

A day In Worcester

Our friends at Worcester's Greendale People's Community Church were kind enough to have me back to give a formal talk on Records Management. While I was in town, I took the opportunity to go on a tour of the American Antiquarian Society.

If anyone is in the Worcester area on a Wednesday afternoon, I would strongly urge you to take advantage of the free tour. I was particularly interested in going because there is a great deal in common between the AAS and the Congregational Library. It was fascinating to hear about their founder, Isaiah Thomas, his work in the printing industry, and to be able to see his personal printing press. Their Council Room has an impressive amount of china plates and features Cotton Mather's baby high chair. I think we forget sometimes that the great figures in history were anything but fully formed adults.

The closed stacks rounded off the tour. The older section bears a striking resemblance to our own in many ways. I had to suppress my envy at their rolling stacks with gorgeous, deep shelves. Many sections were designed to hold their impressive collection of newspapers. However, the majority of their collection is books.

We defied the nor'easter bearing down on the region following the tour. A small but dedicated group of souls met to discuss records management, fortified by our co-host Donna Wilson's meat loaf, baked potatoes, and gingerbread. My first visit to Greendale this past March catalyzed the community to start cleaning up their historical records using the library's tools and guidelines. This was an excellent follow-up; I was able to see the good work and reinforce the principles that will sustain the initial effort.

Thank you to Ron and Donna Wilson and their troupe of dedicated members.

-Jessica

Local author event -- Howard Mansfield at the "Bulfinch Church"

Author, historian, and preservationist Howard Mansfield will be speaking about his book, The Same Ax, Twice, at The Bulfinch Fund's season kick-off event at First Church in Lancaster, Mass. This church has been at the center of the town's life for almost two hundred years. "An American masterpiece," First Church remains one of the most architecturally significant and intact examples of Bulfinch's work.

The Bulfinch Fund Kicks Off Its 4th Season of Fundraising & Events

The Bulfinch Fund has for the last four years focused on two things – raising funds to restore the National Historic Landmark known as the Bulfinch Church and educating people about preservation, history, and architecture.

The Fund has completed the restoration of Lancaster's landmark Church from the weather vane to the top of the portico. We have great hopes in being able to raise the necessary funds to complete the restoration of the sanctuary by the time of the building's 200th anniversary in 2016.

This year's educational events will focus on the importance of preserving our history and the tangible things, like the magnificent Bulfinch church, that cause us to reflect on where we began and the journeys that have made us who we are today as individuals but also as a nation.

The Bulfinch Fund is hosting Howard Mansfield as part of its fundraising to restore First Church's fifth and current building, designed in 1816 by Charles Bulfinch, America's first architect. If the structure looks familiar to you, it's probably because he also designed many prominent buildings including the Massachusetts State House, Faneuil Hall, and the United States Capitol building.

 

Sunday, December 2nd
3:00 - 6:00 pm

The Bulfinch Church
725 Main St.
Lancaster, MA.

Admission $5 donation to The Bulfinch Fund
Email info@TheBulfinchFund.org or call 978-365-5570

Sewall descendants in conversation

"New England's Famous Witch-Hanging Judge"
by Lynn Betlock

At a recent evening of food, family, and history at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston chef Jeremy Sewall spoke about how his family's deep New England roots influenced his food and career. Author and historian Eve LaPlante, who wrote Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall, discussed the family connections she and Chef Sewall shared to some of New England's most famous early residents, including Salem witch trial judge Samuel Sewall.

Radio Boston, a program produced by Boston-area NPR station WBUR, covered this event. You can read more and hear the story on the Radio Boston website.

 

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Lynn Betlock is the Managing Editor of NEHGS's American Ancestors magazine, as well as "The Weekly Genealogist" newsletter and the Daily Genealogist blog.

Event reminder -- Boston's First Quarrel: The Conflict That Split First Church and Created Old South

Don't forget to register for this Sunday's exciting talk and book signing with Francis Bremer at Old South Church.

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We are looking at the Puritans all wrong, writes Francis Bremer, a leading historian of American Puritanism and expert on Boston's founders. The real story is not about witch trials, intolerant pastors, and Sunday blue laws, but empowering ordinary people. Those first New England churchgoers were "tenacious of their liberties," says Bremer, and carefully guarded the authority given them by the Congregational Way.

The story of the controversy in Boston's First Church — and the formation of the Third (or Old South) Church in 1669 — is usually told as a clash of personalities. A vocal minority of First Church's members charged that incoming pastor John Davenport hadn't been properly released from his church in New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. Bremer's latest book, Building the New Jerusalem: John Davenport, a Puritan in Three Worlds, argues that the Boston-wide clash was less a contest for authority between ministers and their followers than a struggle by local congregations to assert their independence from outside control.

In a historic event jointly hosted by the Congregational Library and Boston's First and Third Churches, Francis Bremer will tie those events to central themes of New England and Congregational history. Join us for his talk, a book-signing, and a chance to see some history remade. For more information please contact Alex Howard.

Sunday, November 4, 2012
2:00 - 4:00 pm

Old South Church, Gordon Chapel
645 Boylston Street, Boston

10th Annual Home Movie Day: October 20

Given how many people call me up and inquire about how to best care for records, and that audio-visual materials are some of the toughest to maintain, here's a reminder of a creative way to get smart about taking care of homemade movies.

Back in April, I mentioned Home Movie Day, as a general concept. Now the actual day to participate is about here! This year's 10th annual Home Movie Day is this Saturday, October 20, 2012.

The site describes the project as:

Home Movie Day is a celebration of amateur films and filmmaking held annually at many local venues worldwide.

Home Movie Day events provide the opportunity for individuals and families to see and share their own home movies with an audience of their community, and to see their neighbors' in turn. It's a chance to discover why to care about these films and to learn how best to care for them.

For those in the Boston area, there's an event scheduled in Union Square, Somerville. There are also events relatively nearby, in Northampton and North Adams in Massachusetts, and Hanover and Portsmouth in New Hampshire. Check out all the listings.

-Jessica

Event -- Boston’s First Quarrel

The Conflict That Split First Church and Created Old South

We are looking at the Puritans all wrong, writes Francis Bremer, a leading historian of American Puritanism and expert on Boston's founders. The real story is not about witch trials, intolerant pastors, and Sunday blue laws, but empowering ordinary people. Those first New England churchgoers were "tenacious of their liberties," says Bremer, and carefully guarded the authority given them by the Congregational Way.

The story of the controversy in Boston's First Church — and the formation of the Third (or Old South) Church in 1669 — is usually told as a clash of personalities. A vocal minority of First Church's members charged that incoming pastor John Davenport hadn't been properly released from his church in New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. Bremer's latest book, Building the New Jerusalem: John Davenport, a Puritan in Three Worlds, argues that the Boston-wide clash was less a contest for authority between ministers and their followers than a struggle by local congregations to assert their independence from outside control.

In a historic event jointly hosted by the Congregational Library and Boston's First and Third Churches, Francis Bremer will tie those events to central themes of New England and Congregational history. Join us for his talk, a book-signing, and a chance to see some history remade. For more information please contact Alex Howard.

Sunday, November 4, 2012
2:00 - 4:00 pm

Old South Church, Gordon Chapel
645 Boylston Street, Boston