June 17th, 2025 will mark the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, which was the largest Revolutionary War battle to take place in the Boston area and the bloodiest battle of the war (at least on the British side). Following the outbreak of war in April, the siege of Boston soon became a stalemate, but until Bunker Hill, British officers expected the American provincial army to evaporate the first time they came face to face with the fearsome power of the King’s army. Fought over a year before America declared independence, Bunker Hill proved this assumption wrong, with the redcoats suffering devastating casualties, even though they defeated the Americans in a pyrrhic victory. In just a few minutes, I’m going to be joined by Mike Troy, host of the American Revolution Podcast. Together, we’re going to uncover where the battle was fought and how you can find traces of the battlefield in today’s Charlestown. We’ll look at the officers and men on both sides of the battle, and what the experience of battle was like for the untested American militia soldiers, as well as the lessons that both sides learned from the carnage of June 17, 1775.
Tag: 18th Century
Drinker, Draftsman, Soldier, Spy (episode 321)
250 years ago this week, General Thomas Gage, the royal governor of Massachusetts and commander in chief of all British forces in North America, sent two British spies into the rural communities around Boston. He carefully selected two redcoats to go undercover, roaming highways and country lanes and taking painstaking notes about their terrain and relative military advantages. First they surveyed the western roads to Worcester, then the northern roads to Concord, anticipating a spring offensive against one town or the other. Unfortunately for them, however, their disguises weren’t as good as they hoped, and they were soon under nearly constant surveillance from patriot counterintelligence that left them in fear for their lives.
Continue reading Drinker, Draftsman, Soldier, Spy (episode 321)
Beastly Boston (episode 318)
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! This week, we’re talking about Boston’s first encounters with exotic animals. I will be talking about the very first lion to make an appearance in Boston, but instead of tigers and bears, we’ll take a look at Boston’s experiences with elephants and alligators. Our story will span almost 200 years, with the first lion being imported in the early 1700s, the first elephant in the late 1700s, and the first alligators that most Bostonians got acquainted with were installed in the Public Garden in 1901. Can you imagine proper late-Victorian Bostonians crowding around a pool of alligators to watch them tear live animals limb from limb? I couldn’t either before digging into this week’s episode.
Thirty Days Hath September… Except When It Doesn’t (episode 309)
We all know the old mnemonic device, right? Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November, but what if September suddenly had only nineteen days? That’s exactly what Boston experienced in 1752, when the town went to bed on September 2nd and woke up on the 14th. It sounds like something that would have a supernatural explanation, like a mass alien abduction, or maybe something contaminated the water supply to make the entire town go into a brief coma, but the explanation is more pedestrian. Almost two centuries after most of Europe had switched to a new calendar system, the British Empire was following suit, including its overseas colonies like Massachusetts. How did Bostonians adapt to the change? Were they as confused as I would be if my calendar suddenly changed? Did Bostonians riot, demanding their 11 days back? How did the generation that lived through the change remember key dates like their birthdays after the switch? Listen now!
Continue reading Thirty Days Hath September… Except When It Doesn’t (episode 309)
Eclipse Fever (episode 298)
Eclipses happen when the moon passes between the sun and the earth during the daytime, briefly blocking the light of the sun from the face of the earth. Over the past few years, observers in the US have been treated to every flavor of solar eclipse: a partial in 2021 when part of the sun’s disc remains unobscured; a total eclipse in 2017, when viewers in the narrow path of totality experienced daytime darkness, and an annular eclipse just last fall, when a ring of fire hung in the cold, bright sky. In honor of the April 2024 total eclipse, I’m sharing a clip that cohost emerita Nikki and I recorded within the first year of this podcast about some of the earliest experiences of eclipses here in Boston, most notably in 1780 and 1806. I’ll also share a clip about an unrelated phenomenon that darkened the skies over Boston for a second time in 1780, then again in 1881, 1950, and several times in the past 5 years. This was no eclipse however, but rather a much more terrestrial effect.
Recent Archaeological Discoveries at Shirley Place, with Joseph Bagley (episode 297)
This week I’m pleased to be able to share a recent talk from the Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury about recent archaeological discoveries at Shirley Place that help shed light on the lives of enslaved residents at the 18th century governor’s residence, as well as evidence of the home’s original location before it was moved into its current position in the 19th century. The presenter is past podcast guest Joe Bagley, the archaeologist for the city of Boston, who has led a series of digs at the Shirley house and at the house’s original location across Shirley street. This work is important because written records have only revealed the identity of one of the Africans who were enslaved at the house by Royal Governor William Shirley. In the talk, Bagley explains how discoveries of animal bones, forgotten paving stones, and a cowrie shell connect the dots to the enslaved lives that history otherwise overlooks. He also shares stone flakes and pottery shards that remind us that the history of Shirley Place long predates William Shirley, encompassing the Massachusett people who first called it home.
Cotton Mather and the Women He Loved, with Helen Gelinas (episode 296)
I’m pleased to share a recent talk called “Cotton Mather and the Women He Loved” that was part of the Congregational Library and Archive’s Valentines Day celebration. Helen Gelinas spoke about Cotton Mather and the women he was closest to: his three wives, his daughters, and his sisters, as well as his lifelong mission to understand the biblical Eve, the prototype for all women in his universe. Helen examined who he was behind closed doors, as a husband and father, and she challenged us to reconsider our assumptions that Cotton Mather would have been a tyrant over his wife and a strong disciplinarian who ruled his children with a rod. She also shared the surprising insight that between wives, Cotton Mather was one of Boston’s most eligible widowers, who was pursued aggressively by suitors.
Continue reading Cotton Mather and the Women He Loved, with Helen Gelinas (episode 296)
Water for Boston, Part 1 (episode 292)
This is the first of a three-part history of Boston’s water supply. First up is the early history of water in Boston, from its reliance on natural springs to the construction of the first aqueduct. We’ll compare today’s pure, plentiful drinking water to the challenges that early Bostonians faced in obtaining clean water. First, we’ll look at natural springs, hand-dug wells, and cisterns in early Boston, but as the city grew, these sources became increasingly scarce and polluted. Then we’ll talk about new technologies at the turn of the 19th century, such as drilled artesian wells and the Boston Aqueduct, which brought water from Jamaica Pond into the city. However, these new technologies were controlled by private companies, only providing water to the wealthiest Bostonians, leaving most residents desperate for a new, public source of water in the mid-19th century. Later episodes will explore the near-miracle that introducing a public water supply from the Cochituate reservoir represented and the engineering marvel of our modern Quabbin reservoir.
More Than Just Tea (episode 290)
I had originally planned to release an interview with an expert this week where we debunked some of the most common myths about the destruction of the tea. Events conspired against me, however. Luckily, the rest of Boston has the 250th anniversary of the Tea Party covered. There are commemorative events taking place around the city and throughout December, so we’ll look at a different detail. In all the hoopla about the tea, it’s easy to forget that the tea ships also carried other cargoes. In this week’s episode, we’ll revisit two classic stories about other cartoes that the tea ships brought to Boston. First, we’ll hear about Phillis Wheatley’s book of poetry, which was on the Dartmouth, through the story of enslaved artist Scipio Moorhead. After that, we’ll learn about Boston’s first street lamps, which were on the forgotten fourth tea ship, the William.
The Mather Borealis (episode 289)
Was Cotton Mather a victim of 18th century cancel culture? In December 1719, Bostonians were astounded at the spectacle of the northern lights dancing in the sky, a sight that nobody alive could remember seeing before. One of the Bostonians who watched in astonishment was Cotton Mather. Confronted with this unprecedented natural phenomenon, Mather was torn. His instinct was to see signs and portents in the aurora borealis, but the world around him was changing, and his fellow natural philosophers were more likely to see the clockwork rules of Newtonian physics than the hand of God or the devil moving the universe around them. Mather’s report focuses on the secular experience of the phenomenon, but had he really changed his tune, or was he following the new political correctness of the modern era?