HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

Long before becoming a haven for software and biotech giants, Kendall Square was a center for manufacturing during the era of steam. Here, in the 1860s, two crucial advancements emerged: the standardization of threaded iron pipes and fittings for use in household plumbing, gas fixtures, and steam power and the invention of the modern pipe wrench that allows us to work on them. This episode explores the story behind the Stillson pipe wrench, a tool so revolutionary that its inventor’s name became synonymous with pipe wrenches and so innovative that its design remains nearly unchanged over 150 years later. We’ll meet Daniel Chapman Stillson, the Civil War veteran and ingenious machinist who, frustrated by the limitations of existing tools, designed an adjustable pipe wrench that revolutionized plumbing, pipefitting, and his employer, the Walworth company.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/306/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

The Enduring Grip of Stillson’s Pipe Wrench

Detail of an 1854 map Detail of an 1873 map Brown’s Pipe Tongs Stillson’s pipe tongs Stillson’s 1872 wrench with springs Stillson’s 1869 wrench Stillson’s improved 1870 wrench 1908 Walworth ad

• Paywalled newspapers
  • Stillson’s funeral, Boston Evening Transcript, Wed, Aug 23, 1899
  • Stillson’s funeral, The Boston Globe, Wed, Aug 23, 1899
  • Walworth ad for Stillson wrenches, Boston Evening Transcript, Tue, Nov 23, 1875
• Dan Stillson’s 1869 patent for the original pipe wrench
• Dan Stillson’s 1870 patent for an improved pipe wrench design
• Dan Stillson’s 1872 patent adding springs to his pipe wrench
• James Brown’s original pipe tongs
• Dan Stillson’s improved pipe tongs
• Tool illustrations in the Walworth Company’s 1870 catalog, before they advertised Stillson’s wrench
• A History of One Hundred Years of Valve Manufacturing
• A grumpy old plumber complains about the kids on his yard with their newfangled Stillson wrenches in 1907
• Engineering Review is chock full of Walworth ads, many for Stillson wrenches
• Modern photos of classic Stillson wrenches
• An overview of the Stillson wrench from Mass Plumbers Local 12
• “The forgotten story of ‘America’s most famous tool,’” by Michael Fitzgerald in the Globe magazine
• Biographical details of Dan Stillson’s Civil War service
• 1854 map of Cambridge showing the location of the Davenport railcar factory
• 1873 map of Cambridge showing the location of the Walworth plant
• 1877 birds’ eye view of Cambridge showing the location of the Walworth plant
• Modern 700 Main on Google Maps

The construction of Boston’s Charles River Dam was a monumental project that transformed the tidal estuary of the Back Bay into a fresh-water basin, providing a 20th century solution to problems that the city inherited from the 19th, including issues with industrial waste, sanitation, and general public distaste for the acres of mudflats that were exposed at low tide. Temporary floodgates closed on October 20, 1908, which marked the first separation of the waters of Boston Harbor from the Back Bay’s brackish salt marsh. In the lead-up to this moment, earthen dams were constructed on both sides of the river, with a lock allowing boats to pass through the dam on the Boston side and a sluiceway to regulate water levels in the upstream basin on the Cambridge side. A temporary wooden dam was built to close the center of the river, allowing for the construction of a permanent dam made of dirt and rock. Despite facing opposition and challenges, the dam was successfully completed in 1910, resulting in the creation of the Charles River Basin, the Esplanade, and some of Boston’s most iconic sites for outdoor recreation.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/311/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

Damming the Charles River

• “A Resume of the Charles River Basin Project,” Harvard Engineering Journal, January 1907
• “Closing the Charles River Dam,” Harvard Engineering Journal, November 1908
• “Some Pile Driving Experiments in Connection with the Construction of the Charles River Dam,” Harvard Engineering Journal, November 1907
• Annual Reports of the Charles River Basin Commission, 1903-1910
• William B. de las Casas. “The Boston Metropolitan Park System.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 35, no. 2, 1910
• News Reports
  • Harvard Crimson, March 27, 1901: Hearing Friday for the Dam Near Craigie Bridge
  • Harvard Crimson, March 15, 1902: Final Dam Hearing
  • Springfield weekly Republican, July 31, 1903: formation of the basin commission
  • Harvard Crimson, November 29, 1904: details of Charles River Dam
  • Harvard Crimson, October 25, 1906: progress of the Charles River Dam
  • Boston Evening Transcript, Jan 17, 1908: building the new L bridge
  • Boston Evening Transcript, Sep 05, 1908: earthen dam nearly complete
  • The Boston Globe, Sep 17, 1908: increase in boating accidents
  • Boston Evening Transcript, Oct 12, 1908: Cambridge asks for an extension
  • Boston Evening Transcript, Oct 16, 1908: sand and gravel company sues
  • The Boston Globe, Oct 20, 1908: front page coverage of the dam closing
  • Boston Evening Transcript, Oct 20, 1908: front page coverage of the dam closing
  • Harvard Crimson, October 21, 1908: Charles River Dam Closed
  • The Boston Globe, Oct 23, 1908: basin slow to fill with fresh water
  • Boston Evening Transcript, Dec 09, 1908: the USS Constitution won’t fit
  • Springfield Weekly Republican, December 02, 1909: stocking fish in the basin
  • The Cambridge Tribune, 9 April 1910: tourin...

We’re joined this week by Nancy Seasholes, editor of the new book The Atlas of Boston History, which just came out on Thursday. It’s a historic atlas of Boston that covers the period from the last ice age, right up to the present day. It contains essays contributed by a wide range of well regarded local historians, as well as many written by Seasholes herself. However, what sets this book apart is its beauty. As the name Atlas indicates, it is richly illustrated with maps, charts, diagrams, infographics, historical photos, paintings, and more. It’s a book that I will use as a reference far into the future, and one that any of my fellow Boston history nerds will love.

Please check out the full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/156/

And support the show on Patreon.

The Atlas of Boston History

Nancy Seasholes is a historian and a historical archaeologist. She’s the past author of Walking Tours of Boston’s Made Land and Gaining Ground: a History of Landmaking in Boston, which is a favorite reference for your humble hosts. Since the book has such a heavy emphasis on visual elements, you may want to follow along at the Atlas of Boston History website as you listen to our conversation this week. It includes sample pages from each of the book’s eleven sections, giving you a much better idea of why I’m so enthusiastic about this beautiful book.

Make sure to catch Nancy’s upcoming local appearances:

• October 30 at Porter Square Books
• November 14 at the Massachusetts Historical Society

If you’re still on the fence, here’s how the publisher describes the Atlas:

Few American cities possess a history as long, rich, and fascinating as Boston’s. A site of momentous national political events from the Revolutionary War through the civil rights movement, Boston has also been an influential literary and cultural capital. From ancient glaciers to landmaking schemes and modern infrastructure projects, the city’s terrain has been transformed almost constantly over the centuries. The Atlas of Boston History traces the city’s history and geography from the last ice age to the present with beautifully rendered maps.

Edited by historian Nancy S. Seasholes, this landmark volume captures all aspects of Boston’s past in a series of fifty-seven stunning full-color spreads. Each section features newly created thematic maps that focus on moments and topics in that history. These maps are accompanied by hundreds of historical and contemporary illustrations and explanatory text from historians and other expert contributors. They illuminate a wide range of topics including Boston’s physical and economic development, changing demography, and social and cultural life. In lavishly produced detail, The Atlas of Boston History offers a vivid, refreshing perspective on the development of this iconic American city.

Upcoming Historical Event(s)

Douglas Egerton will give a lunchtime talk at the Boston Athenaeum on November 8, titled “Heirs of an Honored Name: the Decline of the Adams Family and the Rise of Modern America.” Anyone who’s been listening to our show for a while will realize that I’m a big admirer of the Adams family. I often use the letters of John and Abigail Adams as primary sources, we quoted passages from the letters and diaries of John Quincy in our show about early Charles River bridges, and we’ve even outlined how two of John Quincy’s brothers were involved in a riot at Harvard. John Quincy Adams’ son (and John Adams’ grandson) Charles Francis Adams was a respected historian in his own right, whom we’ve quoted in our episode about the epidemics that decimated Boston’s Native American population.

After those three generations, however, Professor Egerton would argue that the Adams family in America entered an irreversible decline, always living in the shadow of its famous past. Here’s how the Athenaeum describes his talk:

John and Abigail Adams founded a famous political family, but they would not witness its calamitous fall from grace. When John Quincy Adams died in 1848, so began the slow decline of the family’s political legacy. In Heirs of an Honored Name, award-winning historian Douglas R. Egerton depicts a family grown famous, wealthy, but...

In this episode, Sara Fitzgerald joins us to discuss her new book The Silenced Muse: Emily Hale, T.S. Eliot, and the Role of a Lifetime. It is the first book-length biography of Emily Hale, the longtime love and secret creative muse of poet T.S. Eliot, who wrote Emily Hale over 1100 letters over the decades of their complicated relationship. However, their relationship was mostly forgotten by history after their letters were locked away for 50 years after their deaths, to protect the innocent. By the time the archive was opened in January 2020, few scholars understood the depth of their relationship. This book reestablishes Hale, not only as a major influence on T.S. Eliot’s body of work, but also as her own woman. From Hale’s upbringing in Chestnut Hill to their first flirtation in a Harvard Square parlor, Fitzgerald traces the intertwining lives of Hale and Eliot over a half a century that revolves around the intellectual center of gravity that is Boston.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/319/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

The Silenced Muse: Emily Hale, T.S. Eliot, and the Role of a Lifetime, with Sara Fitzgerald

Sara Fitzgerald is a retired journalist, having written for The St. Petersburg Times, The Miami Herald, and the Akron Beacon-Journal. She was at The Washington Post for 15 years, where she edited the very first online edition in 1980. She started writing poems and novels as a sideline while working as journalist, and her first work of nonfiction was a biography of Elly Peterson, one of the only women with a national political reputation in mid-20th-century America. Just before T.S. Eliot’s letters to Emily Hale were opened in January 2020, she published a book of historic fiction about the pair called The Poet’s Girl, and her ongoing research in the archives resulted in this biography.

• Purchase The Silenced Muse: Emily Hale, T.S. Eliot, and the Role of a Lifetime
• Sara Fitzgerald’s author website
• Walk in Emily Hale’s footsteps with Sara’s photo gallery of sites connected to her life
• Find out more about the 1918 flu epidemic or the Boston Cooking School in these classic podcast episodes

More to listen to

• Listen to your humble host Jake talk about landmaking in Boston on Explain Boston to Me
• Learn more about The Mega Awesome Super Huge Wicked Fun Podcast Playdate and get your tickets for a live taping of The Past and the Curious

In the 19th century, a network of abolitionists and sympathizers in Boston helped enslaved African Americans find their way to freedom in the Northern states or Canada. It’s a topic we’ve talked about before, but this time there’s a twist. We’re going to be examining how Boston’s position as an important port city changed the dynamic of seeking freedom. Jake sat down with National Park Service ranger Shawn Quigley to discuss how the underground railroad ran right through Boston Harbor.

Please support us on Patreon and check out the full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/135/

The Maritime Underground Railroad

• The header image is from Austin Bearse’s memoir Reminiscences of the Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, and it’s captioned “Landing a fugitive slave at Drake’s Wharf, South Boston, from the yacht Moby Dick, Captain Austin Bearse, on the night of July 18, 1853.”
• Shawn refers to the hand of Jonathan Walker, which was branded with SS for “Slave Stealer.”
• Broadside for the 1859 annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society.
• Portrait of Austin Bearse.
• A beautifully detailed 1878 Boston Harbor navigational chart and a “balloon view” of the harbor from about the same time, showing the relative positions of the various Harbor Islands and the main shipping channels.
• If you haven’t listened to it in the past, check out our three part special on Boston’s resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act from the early days of our podcast.

Boston Book Club

As long as we’re talking about the Harbor Islands today, we thought it would make sense to share a guidebook with you. As we may have mentioned before, the Harbor Islands are some of our favorite places in Greater Boston. Whether we’re sitting around a bonfire on the beach and watching the sun set behind the Boston skyline, skipping stones on quiet waters, or crawling into the hidden passages of a World War I era fort, exploring the Harbor Islands is a great way to spend a day.

Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands by Christopher Klein is arranged as an island by island guide, focusing on the geography and available recreational opportunities on each one. The whole thing is richly illustrated with photos, maps, and historic images. There are long historical sidebars about events that took place on different islands, as well as commentary on modern environmental challenges.

Here’s how the publisher’s website describes the book:

Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands is an indispensable resource for those who want to uncover the best kept secret in the Northeast.

Part history, part travel guide, this book is the most compelling invitation to explore the Boston Harbor Islands National Park area to date. Complete with resource listings of recreational activities on and around the harbor islands and richly illustrated with over 150 full-color photographs, Christopher Klein’s comprehensive coverage and keen wit are sure to inspire thousands of landlubbers and mariners to leave port for many summers to come.

Explore the military installations that protected Boston during wartime including Fort Warren, home of Confederate prisoners during the Civil War. Visit Boston Light on Little Brewster, site of the nation’s oldest lighthouse. Kayak into the coves where pirates and bootleggers once hid. Wander the meadows that were the camps of Native Americans and the sites of Revolutionary skirmishes. Sail to the outer islands, a spectacular ocean wilderness. Find the best year-round fishing spots and discover why the islands are a birders paradise. Dive amid century-old shipwrecks or climb to the top of Spectacle Island for an altogether different view of the Boston skyline. Take in a jazz concert, an antique baseball game, or simply hop from one island to the next to experience the stunning natural beauty of this most storied national park area.

Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands is sure to resonate with new and veteran islanders. ...