The Team of “30″

Stop by the Library this month to see photographs of baseball players in and around Kingston from 1897 to 1961.

Source: The Albion Holmes Collection, MC 25

For more, visit the Kingston Public Library, and the Local History Room, and the full blog piqueoftheweek.wordpress.com

Garden family, no date, by Emily Fuller Drew.

Garden family, no date, by Emily Fuller Drew.

Garden family, no date, by Emily Fuller Drew.

Garden family, no date, by Emily Fuller Drew.

Garden family, no date, by Emily Fuller Drew.

Source: Emily Fuller Drew Collection MC16

For more, visit the Kingston Public Library, and the Local History Room, and the full blog piqueoftheweek.wordpress.com

St. Patrick’s Day Cheerful Memories, no date

One of the things I love about this blog is the list of search terms that people use to get here.  It’s like a secret glimpse of what they want, and the sometimes very specific and other times wildly divergent ways they describe whatever that is.  The top searches are a mix of general and Kingston-centric — Nick’s Rock, delivery wagons, dance cards, famous hermits, Old Colony Railroad, all with hundreds of hits.  But my all-time favorite is a little ways down the list, at 23 searches over the last 4 or so years: leprechaun couple.

So glad I could oblige!

In a small twist of perspective, here’s a tranquil view from the Wharf.

Delano Cottages from Delano’s Wharf, circa 1920

Source: Delano Photograph Collection IC11

For more, visit the Kingston Public Library here, and the Local History Room here, and piqueoftheweek.wordpress.com

Gravestone of Charles Little, 1925

From Emily Drew’s photos of the Old Burying Ground, here’s the marker for Charles Little, son to Charles and Sarah Little who passed away, aged 4 month and 5 days, on February 14, 1717.

Source: Emily Fuller Drew Collection MC16. Negative scanned by the Boston Public Library, under a grant from the LSTA via MBLC.  More on that here.

Brockton & Plymouth Street Railway Company snowplow, circa 1915

The trolley ran through Kingston from 1889 to 1928, and while the traffic definitely increased in the summer, the cars ran all winter too. In 1922, when the Brockton & Plymouth (successor to the Plymouth & Kingston and predecessor to the Plymouth & Brockton) owned the line, the rolling stock included three snowplow cars. One is shown here, scanned from a glass plate negative copy of an earlier photographic print.

“This view is beautiful,” 1908

Putting together an exhibit for Valentine’s Day, I found this postcard. Cataloging it for our online picture collection (coming soon!), I found this subject heading in the LOC’s TGM: ”Courtship. Use for Courting, Flirtation, Wooing.” Yes, I think that just does capture it.

Source: MC11 Joseph Cushman Finney Papers

Rocky Nook shore with sailboats, no date. Photo by Emily Fuller Drew

Model New Community House, 1926

Many thanks to Joe Colby, Head Custodian at the Recreation Department, for letting us know that today is the birthday of the Reed Community Building!  The photograph above appeared in The Civic Progress of Kingston (Memorial Press of Plymouth, 1926) and was accompanied by Sarah DeNormandie Bailey’s text:

And this summer the town is to receive as a wonderful birthday remembrance the crowning gift of a beautiful Community House, given by Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Reed of Worcester.  The Playground Committee must feel as if Aladdin’s lamp had been given to them and they had only to name a wish and have it granted. how many times have I heard thier plans for a Community House and smiled to myself at the enthusiasm which could even dream of such a building, — and now it is all going to be true, only so much more and better than even the wildest dreams.  It is a proud and happy Mother Town which inspires a love in the heart of a son and daughter which lives through many years to blossom at last in a gift like this.

Below is the actual building standing proudly over the ball fields in its first decade.  Here’s to many more!

Reed Building, rear facade, circa 1935