Billerica Mass. Archives - New England Historical Society

Everyone knows about historic New England places like the Freedom Trail or Robert Frost’s Farm. But the New England Historical Society can take you to historic sites that you may not even realize are historic.

Loammi Baldwin House next to a portion of the Middlesex Canal

Even a modern-day restaurant may have a story to tell of long ago. Take, for example, a Chinese restaurant in suburban Boston. Sichuan Garden in Woburn, Mass., is in a former Federal-style mansion that was once the home of Loammi Baldwin, a Revolutionary War veteran. The Baldwin apple was named after him, but even that wasn’t his claim to fame. He built the Middlesex Canal, once a major commercial waterway. Remnants of the canal, which opened in 1803, can be seen right near the restaurant. Or visit the Middlesex Canal Museum 20 minutes away at 71 Faulkner St. in North Billerica.

If Mom likes Chinese, think about taking her to the Sichuan Gourmet in nearby Billerica. Or to any one of the town’s 50 restaurants. Billerica experienced an extraordinary baby boom when the War of 1812 broke out. The 90 families in the town produced 1,043 children, or 11.6 children per family. Can there be a more appropriate New England place to celebrate Mother’s Day?

Well, perhaps so … Portsmouth, R.I., Cambridge and Watertown, Mass., come to mind. Julia Ward Howe, author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, came up with the idea for Mother’s Day, though she thought June 2 would be the ideal date. She and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, had a summer home in Portsmouth called Oak Glen. It’s now on the National Register of Historic Places. Though the house is a private residence, there are plenty of other historic sites in Portsmouth (as well as 38 restaurants, a vineyard, topiary garden and polo). Portsmouth, which celebrated its 375^th anniversary two years ago, boasts a Revolutionary War fort, a home where the Marquis de Lafayette stayed before the Battle of Rhode Island and the training facility where John F. Kennedy learned about his PT Boat.

But we digress.

Mount Auburn Cemetery

We thought of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown because that’s where Julia Ward Howe is buried – along with Nathaniel Bowditch, Charlotte Cushman, Fanny Farmer, Dorothea Dix, Francis Parkman, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Winslow Homer and Edwin Land – to name a few. Mount Auburn isn’t just a cemetery, it’s also a National Historic Landmark, a botanical garden, an outdoor museum of art and architecture, and an important habitat for urban wildlife. The cemetery is credited with starting the American green space movement. If the weather’s good, it’s a gorgeous place for a tranquil stroll, as there are miles of roads and paved paths.

As long as we’re thinking about Julia Ward Howe, we can’t forget Boston, which is where Howe and Gridley lived for a while on Beacon Hill. It’s also a great place to stroll if Mom doesn’t like hills, and there are lots of places to eat. The Howe-Gridley home at 13 Chestnut St., still a private residence, is on the Women’s Heritage Trail.

Sweet Pea Restaurant in Riverton, Conn.

If Mom’s into antiques, she might be into a trip to the Village of Riverton in Barkhamsted, Conn. There the Hitchcock Chair Co. is still making chairs, after a hiatus or two since Lambert Hitchcock started his factory on the Farmington River in 1818. Riverton has a historic district that includes a post office, the Riverton General store, Sweetpea’s Restaurant, Still River Antiques, Greenwood Glass Blowing Studio and Gallery, the Riverton Inn and the Hitchcock Chair Store.

Or how about Old Sturbridge Village? On Mother’s Day, all moms are admitted free. The museum’s village gardens feature medicinal plants used by mothers during the early 19th century, while village households and shops offer insight on parenting back in the day. There’s a prize drawing for two handcrafted gold leaf candle sconces worth $500. Old Sturbridge is also hosting a Mother’s Day brunch, with a children’s station as well. Click here for more.

Judith Sargent Murray

Judith Sargent Murray, born in Gloucester, Mass., is another Mom who could be honored with a visit. She was inspired by ideals of equality and empowerment that spawned the American Revolution. She was a prolific writer who compiled her writing into a three-volume set purchased by George Washington, John Adams and Mercy Otis Warren. Though she only had one daughter who lived to adulthood, she was responsible for educating 12 children. Late in life, she moved to Natchez, Miss., to be with her daughter and was pretty much forgotten after her death in 1820. It wasn’t until 1984 that 20,000 letters she’d written and copied were discovered in a Mississippi plantation house. Historians are still trying to digest them all.

Sargent House Museum

Gloucester is in itself worth a trip, with its picturesque waterfront, seafood restaurants, Cape Ann Museum, Eastern Point neighborhood and settings that appeared in the film The Perfect Storm. You might want to wait until Memorial Day weekend, when Murray’s home — now the Sargent House Museum – opens Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The high Georgian style house has paintings by another famous member of the Sargent family, John Singer.

If you’re a fan of John Singer Sargent (we certainly are) his paintings can be viewed at the Isabella Stewart Garden Museum, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the Worcester Art Museum, the Portland Museum of Art, the RISD Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Currier Museum of Art and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

Mark Your Calendar

Revolutionary War re-enactment at the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum

On Saturday, May 14, take a journey through the life of a colonial soldier at the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum in Wethersfield, one of the prettiest and most historic towns in Connecticut. Revolutionary War re-enactor Anthony Riccio will demonstrate how a Continental soldier fired a musket as the finale to the museum’s “Revolutionary Soldier” Digging Deeper Tour. Riccio and Sal Carmosino will show how to use the contents of a typical soldier’s haversack, including a canteen, sealing wax, dice, flint, gunpowder horn and mouth harp. You’ll learn how the army developed under the leadership of George Washington, who stayed at one of the museum’s four colonial homes during the American Revolution. The Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum even has a restored colonial privy where George Washington may well have sat. For more information, click here.

Photo of Mount Auburn Cemetery by Swampyank at Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0; Photo of Sargent House Museum by Doug Kerr on Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0 By Wikipedia.

Henry Wheeler Shaw, the 19^th-century humorist known as Josh Billings, said genuine proverbs are like good cambric needles: short, sharp and shiny. In New England, there are plenty of them, about the weather, about holidays and about each other.

In Bath, N.H., someone who makes a strong but odd statement was said to be ‘equal to Priest Sutherland,’ a minister in the town for 50 years who made strong but odd statements.

Also in New Hampshire, ‘leaning toward Sawyers’ was an expression used when someone left the house surreptitiously for a drink. The Sawyer family kept a store where drinks could be purchased in Sugar Hill.

Maine loggers blamed annoyances and misfortune on the mythical character Sock Saunders. If a logger slipped on a log but caught himself in time, he said, “Foxed you that time, Sock Saunders.” If he cut himself, he said, “Got me that time, Sock Saunders.’

A Connecticut toast goes, “Here’s to the Nutmeg State—who has a grater?”

In Massachusetts, they say a rib was taken off Billerica to make Bedford. And for someone who finally realizes something obvious, they say, ‘Dawn breaks over Marblehead.’ When Marbleheaders ran into each other they’d say, “Down bucket,” or “To hell I pitch it.” No one seems to know why.

Travelers used to say that Cape Codders called a house a house, but a house with a shed was a village. (That no longer applies.) Cape Codders were called ‘Chowderheads’ and ‘Mooncussers.’ Cape Codders called people who lived off the Cape ‘Off-Capers.’

Nantucketers called Martha’s Vineyard residents ‘Old Town Turkeys,’ while a Nantucketer was a ‘Scrap Islander’ to a denizen of Martha’s Vineyard. Nantucketers liked to say something was ‘as handy as Caleb’s cheese,’ referring to Caleb Macy, who liked cheese so much he kept one hanging from a string in his sitting room.

Northampton, Mass., was called ‘Pudding Town’ and its people ‘Puddingers,’ after the residents’ custom of eating hasty pudding and milk for Saturday evening supper.

All Boston residents were ‘beaneaters,’ and Boston folk were ‘full of notions.’ ‘Brahmins’ were the clannish, aloof, old New England families. Of them it was said,

And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to the Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.

‘Cold roast Boston’ referred to Brahmins because they ate roast beef on Sunday and cold leftovers on Monday. The Codfish Aristocracy was a class of nouveau riche who had acquired wealth from the codfishing industry.

Poor Irish were ‘shanty Irish,’ while shanty Irish with notions of respectability were ‘lace-curtain Irish.’ Above the ‘lace-curtain Irish’ were the ‘two-bathroom Irish,’ then the ‘wall-to-wall Irish,’ then at the pinnacle of Irish society were ‘Irish who had fruit in the house when no one was sick.’

‘Black Irish’ were Irish people with dark hair and eyes, said to be descendants of shipwrecked sailors of the Spanish Armada.

Harvard’s battle cry of ‘Oh, Rinehart,’ started on June 11, 1900, when an undergraduate called up to the dormitory window for John Bryce Gordon Rinehart (Class of 1900). His cry was picked up across the Yard by hundreds of students, and was repeated during any campus ruckus.

Billerica Mass.

New England Places To Take Mom on Mother’s Day

Judith Sargent Murray

Mark Your Calendar

What They Say in New England About Local Characters and Customs