Category: Episodes

Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them, with Joe Bagley (episode 230)

Joe Bagley is the archaeologist for the city of Boston, and his new book Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them catalogs 50 of the oldest houses, stores, churches, and even lighthouses that still stand here in the Hub.  In this episode, he tells us how it’s still possible to rediscover an unknown house from the 1700s in the North End in 2020, and how a house from the 1790s, the 41st oldest building in Boston, could be demolished in the few short months since the book was published.  Along the way, we’ll talk about how he researched the book, the rules he had to write for himself about what “counts” as a historic building, and how similar his life is to Indiana Jones.  We’ll also explore how historic buildings can reveal the otherwise untold stories of enslaved Bostonians, women, and even some of the earliest Japanese citizens to visit the United States.  Plus, I’m joined by special guest host Nikki this time around!


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He Takes Faces at the Lowest Rates (episode 229)

In 1773, an ad appeared in the Boston Gazette for a Black artist who was described as possessing an “extraordinary genius” for painting portraits.  From this brief mention, we will explore the life of a gifted visual artist who was enslaved in Boston, his friendship with Phillis Wheatley, the enslaved poet, and the mental gymnastics that were required on the part of white enslavers to justify owning people like property.  Through the life of a second gifted painter, we’ll find out how the coming of the American Revolution changed life for some enslaved African Americans in Boston.  And through the unanswered questions about the lives of both these men, we’ll examine the limits of what historical sources can tell us about any given enslaved individual.  


Continue reading He Takes Faces at the Lowest Rates (episode 229)

The Prison Ship Uprising (episode 228)

On August 10, 1780, British prisoners of war being held on a ship on Boston Harbor conspired to disarm their guards and escape.  In the end, they were all caught, but an American guard was killed.  This case gives us a fascinating insight into what life was like for POWs in the American Revolution, but there’s very little record of it in historical sources.  If the prosecutor in the murder case hadn’t signed the Declaration of Independence four years earlier, his papers may not have been considered worth saving, and we might have no record of this interesting case at all.  Amazingly, the defense basically argued that all’s fair in love and war, and that since the redcoats had been taken prisoner by force, they had a right to seek freedom by force.  Even more amazingly, it worked!


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Three Battles for Boston Light (episode 227)

Boston Light,  America’s first and oldest light station, still welcomes visitors and locals alike if they approach the city by sea, but that wasn’t always the case.  During the first year of the Revolutionary War, there were three attempts to destroy Boston Light during the siege of Boston.  First, the newly formed Continental Army burned the strategically important lighthouse twice in July 1775, 246 years ago this week, using the 18th century equivalent of a stealth fighter: the humble whaleboat.  Then, as the British finally evacuated Boston in the spring of 1776, the last ships to leave the harbor blew up the lighthouse that June.  


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Blazing Skies: Boston’s Nike Missiles (episodes 226)

For almost 20 years, Nike missile batteries formed a suburban ring around Boston that ushered the city into the 1950s and the atomic age.  The Ajax missile and its successor, the Hercules, were intended to defend Boston and its many military assets from Soviet bombers flying over the North Pole to rain nuclear destruction on the Hub.  The ring of bases stretched from the South Shore to the North Shore and far inland, always ready to fire in 15 minutes or less.  The Nike program was an open secret, with base gates sometimes thrown open for the public and reporters alike.  But there were more closely guarded secrets, as well.  Like the fact that the Ajax missile wasn’t really equipped to engage modern jet bombers.  Or the fact that a successful interception by the later Hercules would result in a nuclear detonation in our own backyards, with tens of thousands of Americans killed or injured.  


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The Middlesex Canal: Boston’s First Big Dig (episode 225)

In the last decade of the 18th century, a group of investors called the Proprietors of the Middlesex Canal turned a crazy idea into reality.  After some initial stumbles, they were able to successfully build a navigational canal from Boston Harbor to the Merrimack River in Lowell.  In an era before highways and airports, it became the first practical freight link between the markets and wharves of Boston and the vast interior of New England in Central Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  Against all odds, it was a success, and an unparalleled feat of engineering.  However, its perceived success was short lived, with the coming of the railroad spelling doom for the canal business and commercial failure for the Proprietors.


Continue reading The Middlesex Canal: Boston’s First Big Dig (episode 225)

The Liberty Riot (episode 224)

On June 10, 1768 a riot swept through Boston that forced Royal officials to flee for their lives, saw a boat bodily carried onto the Common and burned, and in the end helped bring on the Boston Massacre less than two years later.  John Hancock, later a prominent patriot and owner of America’s most famous signature, was at the center of the controversy.  Known then as a leading merchant and possibly the richest man in the British colonies, Hancock would find himself on trial as a smuggler before a court that was originally set up to deal with pirates and defended by none other than future President John Adams.


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The Mysterious Murder (Maybe) of Starr Faithful (episode 223)

When Starr Faithfull’s body washed up on a Long Island beach 90 years ago, the case became a national obsession.  At the center of the story was a beautiful young flapper, with a diary full of covert sexual conquests, a sordid history with a prominent politician, and a drug and booze fueled nightlife in the speakeasies of two major cities.  Was her death a suicide, driven by her dark past?  A tragic accident after one too many?  Or was it something darker, a murder for hire on behalf of a former Boston mayor… or his underworld adversaries?


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Julia Child, from the OSS to PBS (episode 222)

At the outbreak of World War II, president Roosevelt decided to create a single centralized agency to organize the nation’s many competing intelligence services. Not the CIA, which would come a few years later, but the Office of Strategic Services. Before the CIA, the OSS was America’s chief spy service. And before Julia Child was a famous chef on PBS, young Julia McWilliams was recruited by the OSS, where she traveled the world and fell in love with Paul Child and exotic food. Listen to this week’s episode to learn about Julia Child at war: how she was recruited and trained, where she served in the Asian theater of war, and why that experience helped lead her to a Cambridge house with its now famous kitchen.


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Boy Wonder Arrested as Ringleader when Reds Riot in Roxbury (episode 221)

On May Day in 1919, Roxbury socialists marched in support of a textile workers’ strike in Lawrence.  The afternoon turned violent, with police firing shots to disperse the crowd.  In the aftermath, two officers were killed and a mob formed that hunted down and viciously beat many of the marchers.  As the smoke cleared, it became evident that one of the leaders of the march was a celebrity: William James Sidis, the boy wonder.


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