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The Wallingford Tornado of 1878 Unleashes Terror on an Unsuspecting Town

The Wallingford Tornado of 1878 ranks as one of the worst natural disasters to ever strike Connecticut. It caused so much damage the ruined town center became a tourist attraction.

The town then was a burgeoning community of about 4,000 people along the Quinnipiac River. Many of its residents were Catholic immigrants who worked in two large silver factories.

The Wallingford Tornado wasn’t the only destructive tornado to hit Connecticut. The state has, along with western Massachusetts, a tornado alley that has experienced some of the worst damage in U.S. tornado history.

And in 1878, it took the Wallingford Tornado just moments to inflict terrible destruction on an unsuspecting town.

An empty shell left by the Wallingford Tornado. Photo courtesy New York Public Library.

Connecticut Tornado History

Connecticut ranks only 43rd in the United States for tornado frequency, and most Connecticut tornadoes are weak. But occasionally an intense tornado strikes, and the state’s dense population gives the weather system more opportunity to wreak havoc. A Connecticut tornado can cause as much damage as its Midwestern siblings.

The first record of a Connecticut tornado happened in 1648. The settlers didn’t have much to say about it, other than on June 14, a ‘great tempest’ toppled trees somewhere near Hartford.

Then on June 20, 1682, a tornado destroyed forests in southern Connecticut. In the worst hit town, Shelton, the tornado left scarcely a tree standing along a half-mile-wide path.

During the Four State Tornado Swarm of 1787, at least five tornadoes starting in New Britain struck Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, killing two in Wethersfield. The first went from New Britain to Coventry in Connecticut, while another traveled from Killingly to Mendon, Mass. A third struck northeast of East Windsor and the fourth injured two while moving from Northborough, Mass., to Framingham, Mass. The fifth hit Rochester, N.H.

The Worcester tornado of 1953, one of the 25 worst tornadoes in U.S. history, killed 90 people in a 90-minute terror spree.

And back in Connecticut in 1979, the Windsor Locks tornado was one of the most destructive in history, killing three people and causing millions of dollars of damage.

Damage caused by the Wallingford Tornado.

The Wallingford Tornado

The Wallingford tornado struck furiously around 6 pm on Friday, Aug. 9, 1878. The black funnel cloud appeared over Mt. Tom and hit the Community Lake and created a 200-foot-high water spout.

Then it headed for the center of town.

Wallingford was completely unprepared for the disaster. The Wallingford Tornado ripped up trees from their roots, destroyed orchards and tore down at least 40 houses and 50 barns. It caused a fire to start, but fortunately rain put it out quickly.

The Wallingford Tornado also took off the top two floors of the new brick schoolhouse, wrecked the windmill, a brick factory and the Catholic church. The collapsing buildings killed most of the victims.

All that took two minutes.

In the end, the storm killed 34 people, mostly Catholic, at the rate of one person every four seconds. The tornado severely injured another 28 people and inflicted minor injuries on 42.

The Wallingford Tornado also uprooted telegraph and telephone wires, cutting off communication. A 12-year-old boy named John Hoey rode on horseback to Meriden, the next town, to seek help. Within an hour of the tornado touching down, trains began to arrive with rescuers. Seven doctors came a half hour later and turned Town Hall into a hospital.

Aftermath

The Catholic Church buried 25 of the victims on Sunday, two days after the Wallingford Tornado struck. Ten thousand people came to the funeral.

Over the next few days, special trains carried thousands more sightseers to see the destruction. They could buy refreshments to help raise money for the survivors. Factories in New Britain closed to workers could travel to Wallingford to view the carnage.

This story was updated in 2022.

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The First Shopping Mall in Each New England State

In 1947, New England’s first shopping mall broke ground in Stamford, Conn. No one knew for sure whether it would even survive. Few had any idea of the love that New Englanders would shower on the easy parking, bustling crowds and seductive merchandise of their shopping meccas.

Following the upheaval of World War II, everything from religion and politics to gender roles and work went through the tumbler and came out forever changed. Low unemployment, rising wages and the flight to the suburbs combined to create the world’s greatest consumer culture.

Rhode Island, by the way, can claim the oldest shopping mall in the United States – the Westminster Arcade, built in 1828. But what we’re focusing on here is the post-World War II suburban shopping mall, the kind you need a car to get to.

Millions and millions of cars made it to New England’s shopping malls. You met your friends there and did your Christmas shopping there. And you grew up unable to resist the lure of popcorn-scented corridors, stylishly clad mannequins and the sound of Muzak.

Alas, the glory days of the shopping mall have ended. Just as few people predicted their popularity, few could envision the disappearance of anchor stores like Alexander’s, Montgomery Ward, Woolworth’s and The Bon-Ton. Who knew Macy’s would gobble up Jordan Marsh and Filene’s?

Today, hundreds of dead malls litter the American landscape, replaced by Amazon warehouses and harried package deliverers. Perhaps someday they’ll return. In the meantime, here is a look at the first shopping mall in each New England state. Some have even managed to survive.

Ridgeway Center

Postcard showing Stamford’s Ridgeway Center

Alfons Bach, who developed New England’s first shopping mall, understood the future of American consumerism. Bach emigrated from Germany well before World War II and wound up in Connecticut. Perhaps because of his German roots he had no nostalgia for the old ways of New England. That allowed him to shape the future around the tastes of the generation coming of age in the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Bach had become a giant in the industrial design field. His work was sought after by companies making all sorts of products. Rugs, pianos, toasters, desk accessories, tube-steel furniture and countless other items all bore his brand.

But he had bigger ideas. He saw how rapidly the automobile was changing the culture. And shopping, he believed, was bound to change. With cars that needed parking, it made less and less sense to travel to congested cities to shop. Suburban consumers, he believed, would respond to convenient new shopping malls with clean, uncluttered design. Shoppers needed parking, he thought, but not the trappings of the city.

Ridgeway Shopping Center today. Image courtesy Google maps.

Bach took this vision to Lerner Shops, a chain of women’s clothing stores. He suggested they should join with him in building a modern shopping center that would satisfy the emerging tastes. The Lerners, however, did not see the wisdom in what he said. So Bach struck out in his own in 1947 and began work on the Ridgeway Center in his hometown of Stamford, Conn., on 15 acres of land he acquired.

Originally opened in 1947 with 110,000 square feet of space, the “motor age merchandising mecca” had such tenants as W. & J. Sloane, Pennsylvania Drug, Deena’s, The Lurie Company, Chizzini, a Slenderella figure salon and a liquor store.

It grew rapidly. In 1951, Bach added a three-level Sears, an office tower, and a cinema — essentially a prototype of today’s New England shopping malls. By 1958 he added a Saks 34th Street boutique-type store. The mall went through several renovations and remains in operation today.

Pine Tree Shopping Center

As you would expect, Maine got its first shopping mall in its biggest city, Portland. The Pine Tree Shopping Center opened in 1959 featuring a Zayre, one of the first 14 stores opened by the Massachusetts retail chain.

The Pine Tree Shopping Center started out with 12 stores, including W.T. Grant, Woolworth’s, Child World, Rexall and Columbia Market grocery store. All are now gone.

Maine’s first shopping mall attracted families, who brought their kids after work because the stores opened late.

The Pine Tree Shopping Center grew to 20 stores. Then, like so many shopping malls, it lost its anchor tenants and started to look tired. A developer came in, revitalized some of the stores and demolished others to make way for big box outlets.

Shopper’s World

Shoppers’ World, the first shopping mall in Massachusetts

In the late 1940s, Bostonians left for the suburbs in droves. New roads and reliable cars created a steady push westward, southward and northward from the center city. Framingham, on Route 9, was in a perfect position to take advantage of the free-traveling Bay Staters.

Enter Huston Rawls, with his plans for Shopper’s World, a shopping destination unlike all other shopping malls.

With 44 stores and parking for an astounding 6,000 cars, Shoppers’ World had virtually any product a consumer could think of. Rawls promised Framingham town fathers, apparently with a straight face, that the new mall’s tenants would not compete with other, existing stores.

Rawls lured Jordan Marsh into leaving Boston for the first time and put the store under a giant clear-span dome. His design team created the rest of the mall in the modern Populuxe style, making Boston’s downtown seem old and dangerous in contrast. The whole thing was built around an enormous town green.

Rawls featured the Lone Ranger, Rin Tin Tin and Rex Trailer to draw crowds. When the grand opening conflicted with the 1951 World Series, Rawls hired “ask me” girls to patrol the shopping center with radios. Anyone who wanted to know the score could just ask them.

The New England weather, however, did not cooperate with his plans. Rain and snow plagued Shoppers’ World throughout its life. Poor construction that didn’t stand up was another problem. And Rawls couldn’t bring a second major tenant to the facility.

Still, his vision lasted for 43 years. Shoppers’ World was torn down in 1994, and another mall of the same name has taken its place.

Nashua Mall

New Hampshire’s status as a no-sales-tax state naturally appealed to developers looking for a way to lure consumers. Less than five miles over the New Hampshire border, they built the state’s first shopping mall in 1969 in Nashua. The Nashua Mall offered convenience for Massachusetts shoppers who wanted to make a quick trip for some tax-free shopping.

With 220,000 square feet of space, the mall was one of the many Woolco malls that featured a Woolco Discount Mart at one end and an Almy’s at the other.

Woolworths envisioned Woolco as a big brother to the smaller five-and-dime stores, but offering discounted pricing on a large scale. They launched in 1962 with Red Grille restaurant tucked inside most, an update to the Woolworth lunch counter. But by 1982, recession snuffed out all the company’s U.S. stores.

In 1969, however, the marketers knew how to bring in the customers in New Hampshire. No celebrities or ultra-modern styling. Instead, the Nashua Mall featured indoor tropical palm trees and the promise of 72-degree temperatures all year round. It finally gave way to more modern retail concepts, such as outlet shopping malls. The Nashua Mall closed in 2003.

Midland Mall

Midland Mall Postcard

When Sears opened Rhode Island’s first shopping mall in 1967, it left little to chance. The modern Midland Mall in Warwick benefited from the collective lessons learned from earlier shopping malls. It hummed from the start.

Victor Gruen, master mall builder, knew the key to success: innovation. Shoppers wanted the latest and greatest. So he built Midland on two floors with an open courtyard – the first such mall in New England. Unlike Shoppers’ World, also on two floors, it was fully enclosed. The retailers had learned the importance of keeping that New England weather at bay.

Adding to the contemporary two-story look, the developers also eschewed escalators in favor of “speedramps.” Like a moving walkway on a slant, the speedramp looked sleeker and more modern than escalators. It also tried to ease the fears of people intimidated by escalators while drawing in curious customers to see these innovative people movers.

The developers also locked in two key anchor stores: Cherry & Webb and downtown Providence’s Shepherd Company took the key spaces in the mall, and its 450,000 square feet of space filled rapidly. It had a Docktor Pet Center, Orange Julius, Spencer Gifts, Thom McAn Shoes, Flagg Brothers Shoes and the Midland Cafeteria. The mall survived through 2011.

Ethan Allen Shopping Plaza

Vermont’s first shopping mall, the Ethan Allen Shopping Plaza

Ethan Allen, who rode the speculative real estate boom of the late 18^th century, would probably have built Vermont’s first shopping mall had he lived into the 1950s. However, a Vermont real estate developer named Tony Pomerleau built Vermont’s first shopping mall in 1951 and named it after the Green Mountain Boy.

The Ethan Allen Shopping Plaza was a simple strip mall in Burlington’s North End, a row of stores with a row of stores with a supermarket in the middle and a lot of parking in front. The mall featured the Ethan Allen Bake Shop, Plouffe’s Pharmacy, Ben Franklin, Carvel Ice Cream, a bowling alley and a movie theater.

Pomerleau went on to build about 20 more shopping malls before he died at 100 in 2018. Today, a real estate investment firm has the property on the block.

For more information about early shopping malls, visit here. This story was updated in 2023.

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The Tempestuous Life of Tobias Lear, George Washington’s In-Law

Col. Tobias Lear V, known as Toby to his friends, left his mark on the early history of the United States as an in-law and the personal secretary to George Washington. He also authored the only firsthand account of the death of the nation’s first president.

His journal is his legacy, but his story is one of determination, failure, upheaval, poor judgment and eventual self-destruction.

Young Tobias Lear

Tobias Lear

Tobias Lear was born on Sept. 19, 1762, to the respectable Portsmouth, N.H., couple of Capt. Tobias Lear IV and Mary Stillson Lear. As a young man, Toby attended the Dummer Charity School and then Harvard College.

Capt. Lear was a prosperous Portsmouth farmer and sea-trader until 1776, when the British Navy confiscated his ship, the Polly. Capt. Lear had paid for the Polly’s cargo, a consignment of New England goods and lumber bound for Antigua. The total loss of the Polly nearly bankrupted the Lears.

But despite their financial hardship, the captain and his wife made paying for Toby’s Harvard College tuition a priority. He graduated in 1779.

Tragic Figure

Historian P. Bradley Nutting, emeritus at Framingham State College, considered Tobias Lear a tragic figure. Wrote Nutting:

He had the natural inclinations of a diplomat, preferring negotiation to confrontation. While ambitious, Lear was also compassionate, deeply affected by human suffering.

Tobias Lear also liked being seen as a person of importance. For example, he used his title of colonel, one that he received when President John Adams appointed Washington as commander in chief of the army in preparation for war with France. Lear never saw combat nor did the nation go to war with France, yet Lear used the title the rest of his life.

Lear’s historic relationship with George Washington began when he came to Mount Vernon in 1785. The general, four years after the Revolutionary War ended, needed a new secretary. As an active citizen on the young nation’s stage, the future first president was flooded with correspondence and requests.

So Washington reached out to his friend Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln for help. Lincoln, who became the namesake of Lear’s son, recommended his 23-year-old friend Tobias Lear. Washington wrote in a letter to Gen. Lincoln:

I have at last found a Mr. Lear, who supports the character of a gentleman and a [Harvard] scholar. He was educated at Cambridge, Mass. He has been to Europe and in different parts of this continent. It is said he is a good master of languages. He reads French and writes exceedingly good letters.

Mount Vernon

Lear’s primary duties were letter writing, but he also helped Washington manage the day-to-day operations of Mount Vernon. According to author Stephen Decatur, in the Private Affairs of George Washington,

Besides handling all the financial details, supervising the instruction of the [Washington] children, and managing the household, he was in charge of correspondence, penning most of the personal and confidential letters that the President did not write himself, issuing invitations for the weekly dinners, and superintending the necessarily voluminous files.

In addition to Lear’s time at Mount Vernon as an employee, his second and third marriages brought him into the Washington family.

Tobias Lear’s first wife was his childhood sweetheart Mary “Polly” Long. They married in 1790. Together they had a son named Benjamin Lincoln Lear.

Washington Marriages

Polly went to work for the Washingtons when the family moved to Philadelphia. Sadly, she died in the 1793 yellow-fever epidemic.

Lear then married Frances Bassett Washington, a widow of George Washington’s nephew George Augustine Washington. She died in 1796 of tuberculosis.

His third marriage was to Francis Dandridge Henley, or Fanny, Martha Washington’s niece.

Lear’s second and third marriages transformed him from a key employee to a beloved member of the family. This new connection gave Lear nearly unlimited access to the Washingtons and the Mansion House Farm.

George Washington entertaining French generals at Mount Vernon.

The Death of Washington

When Lear was at Mount Vernon he was able to record in his journal Washington’s last words and his death on Dec. 14, 1799:

“Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead.” I bowed assent; for I could not speak. He then looked at me again and said, “Do you understand me? I replied yes! “Tis well” said he.

About ten minutes before he expired (which was between ten & eleven o’clk). he breathing became easier; he lay quietly; he withdrew his hand from mine, and felt his own pulse. I saw his countenance change, – I spoke to Dr. Craik, who sat by the fire; he came to the bedside. The general’s hand fell from his wrist I took it in mine and put it into my bosom. Dr. Craik put his hands over his Eyes and he expired without a struggle or a sigh!

Lear’s Mysterious End

Lear’s life ended quite differently from Washington’s. He died neither in his bed nor surrounded by friends and family. Lear committed suicide.

Tobias Lear and his wife spent his last evening with their friends, Cmdre. and Mrs. Rogers, in the Federal City. The Rogers’ daughter later wrote:

My father and mother had been making a late visit to the Lears [sic] one evening, and, as they were bidding goodbye, Mr. Lear said, “I will walk with you, Commodore, a little way.” He accompanied them, slowly strolling and talking; at last they were home, he stopped and said, “Goodbye, Mrs. Rogers! Goodbye, Commodore!” Pressing my father’s hand warmly.

The next day after breakfast, on a warmer-than-normal morning, Tobias Lear walked into the garden of his home with a loaded pistol and shot himself in the head. He did not leave a note or will. Sometime later his body was discovered by his adult son Benjamin. The Rogers’ daughter added to her description of Lear’s death:

The very next morning my parents were sent for. Something terrible had happened at Mr. Lear’s. He had killed himself soon after leaving my father. My mother always fancied that he wished to say something to my father, which her presence prevented; and they both remembered his farewell to them had been more tender and lingering than usual, [sic] However he died and left no sign. There was not a conjecture even of the cause of his death. He seemed well and vigorous, quiet and self-contained, but not unhappy.

(Ms. Rogers seems to have been confused about the timing of Lear’s death. The Washington City Gazette wrote that Tobias Lear killed himself the following morning in his garden, not after he left her parents that evening.)

Why?

Today, more than 200 years after his tragic end, we do not know what led Tobias Lear to take his own life. But a series of questionable decisions at least offers context.

In an effort to make his own mark after Polly died in 1793, Lear tried to breathe financial life into his company. T. Lear & Co. invested in land and sold staples like flour even as the national economy was collapsing.

During Lear’s financial troubles, he continued to assist with rent collection on Washington’s properties. Yet, in a moment of desperation, Tobias Lear stole Washington’s rent money from an Alexandria property. On discovery of the theft, Washington was livid:

You will perceive buy [sic] the enclosed manner that I am disappointed in receiving the rent for my house in Alexandria. These things put you, the payer and myself in an awkward situation; for it must seem strange what has been paid. I must therefore, request, in explicit terms, that you will receive no more moneys due to me; and I should be glad to have a statement of the A/c [accounts] as it stands between us, since the last was rendered. … I have not the slightest doubt of my being credited for every farthing you receive on my A/c; but that does not remedy the evil. … [It] would be uncandid and inconsistent with the frankness of friendship, no to declare that I have not approved, no cannot approve, of having my money received and applied to uses not my own, without my consent.

Another Scandal

Luckily for Tobias Lear, Washington forgave him, which spoke to the friendship and love that Washington had toward him. Nevertheless, one wonders how this event might have lingered in Lear’s memory.

Another scandal might have contributed to his eventual self-destruction. It was associated with his mentors George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Washington and Jefferson regularly corresponded about a variety of subjects, including the appropriate balance of federal and state power.

Washington, who held the Continental Army together under the weak Articles of Confederation, saw the need for unified states under a federal umbrella. Jefferson, on the other hand, wanted a government resting on strong state and limited federal power.

Historians hypothesize that Jefferson rebuked Washington for his overly monarchical presidency, and Washington more than likely defended himself, but we do not know for certain. For some reason their letters after the summer of 1796 have not been found.

The Missing Letters

One clue about where the letters went came from Tobias Lear:

A few days since Colo Humphreys called upon me, and informed me that in a public company, dining at Mr Ames’ at Dedham, on Saturday, the Revd Mr. Krikland of Boston said he had been informed that I had suppressed certain papers belonging to the late Genl Washington, and [were] in my charge for some time after his decease, particularly some of the Genls’ Diaries, for the period when Mr Jefferson was Secy of State, and that those papers were essential to the History of the Generals’ Life now preparing for the press.

Firestorm

Historian Ray Brighton believes Tobias Lear destroyed multiple letters in order to protect Washington’s and Jefferson’s reputations. A letter from Lear to Alexander Hamilton supports this hypothesis. He wrote, “There are, as you well know, among the sev[eral] letters and papers many which every public and private consideration should withhold from further inspection.”

When Washington’s papers were found to be missing, Lear was accused of theft. The scandal—an early American version of a relentless social media attack—seemed endless. Massachusetts state Sen. Timothy Pickering, a fanatic Federalist and secretary of state to both Washington and Adams, wanted to destroy Tobias Lear,

…as part of the bitter rearguard action the Federalists were fighting against the march of Jeffersonism; that he was still persisting as late as 1829….”

In order to protect and help Lear, President Jefferson appointed him to be the US envoy to Saint-Domingue, modern-day Haiti. Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison also appointed him to be the nation’s peace envoy to North Africa during the Barbary Wars of the early 1800s.

No Pinnacle

Tobias Lear should have reached the pinnacle of his diplomatic career after negotiating and signing the Tripoli peace treaty with the country’s ruler, Bashaw Yousef Caramanli. The treaty ended the Barbary War—but again Lear set himself up for scandal.

Lear agreed to a secret protocol left out of the final June 4, 1805, draft giving Yousef four years to comply. Nutting notes:

Writing to Madison on July 5, Lear made no mention of the gentleman’s agreement, only commenting ambiguously that it was a “condition that time be allowed for the delivery of the family [American hostages].” … Regardless of Lear’s motives, which he never explained, this clandestine understanding when combined with the agreement to lay ransom [for the American prisoners] would ultimately demolish his reputation in the United States.

Man Without A Party

When the provision was discovered, the Federalists branded him a turncoat and the Democratic Republican Party disowned him. Tobias Lear was then a scandalous—and partyless—man with little chance for a lucrative political appointment or high-profile diplomatic post.

The Tobias Lear house in Portsmouth, N.H.

As a result, he could only get a job with the War Department as an accountant, a position beneath his experience and talents. Lear’s awareness that his professional career would never be what it once was must have contributed to his death.

In the end, historians have a handful of unanswered questions that, if known, would tell us why Tobias Lear committed suicide.

Why did Lear think that stealing from Washington was prudent, and why did he destroy Washington’s and Jefferson’s letters? Why did Lear keep a key part of his North African treaty a secret? And how did he feel about his menial job?

Taken individually, these are difficult issues and powerful experiences for anyone to live with. Throughout his life, Tobias Lear tried to muster his talents to make his name in finance and public service, despite his failures. He tried to build a fortune, maintain a respectable reputation and grasp fame, though he never succeeded.

Conceivably, these might have been factors in his death, but historians can only speculate. Nevertheless, on that September morning in 1816, Tobias Lear gave in and in a time of emotional and mental confinement chose not to embrace the new day.

End Notes

The author of this story about Tobias Lear, Cameron L. Kline is an educator, lecturer, and communications professional living in Philadelphia, PA. In partnership with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, he was the first scholar to annotate the complete Tobias Lear Journal.

Note: The material about the death of Washington is from The Tobias Lear Journal, housed in the archives of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. It was first fully annotated by the author of this essay. The 70-pages detail the death of Washington, the president’s final wishes, perpetrations and funeral, entombment, plan to reanimate his corpse, the possible publishing of his papers, love for his family, his appointment and voyage to be Council to St. Domingo.

Thanks also to “Colonel Tobias Lear and the Tripolitan Hostage Crisis,” by Bradley P. Nutting in the New England Journal of History and “Private Affairs of George Washington,” by Stephen J. Decatur.

Image of Tobias Lear House: By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15203288.

This story last updated in 2022.

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The Halloween Ephemera Factory: An Empire Built on Orange Crepe Paper

The giant Halloween ephemera factory in Framingham, Mass., for many years churned out crepe paper and cut-outs that collectors go crazy for today.

Thousands worked for the Dennison Manufacturing Co., making Halloween costumes, pumpkin-themed party invitations, die-cut ghosts and orange-and-black table decorations.

Halloween ephemera from the 1920 Bogie Book

The company got its start in 1844 making paper jewelry boxes. Later it made merchandise tags. But the serious Halloween ephemera collector knows Dennison for producing oh-so-desirable Halloween party items from 1909 to the 1940s.

Dennison also made Bogie Books, retro-Halloween versions of Martha Stewart’s Living magazine. The Bogie Books showed the reader how to throw a successful Halloween party for adults. They included menus, ideas for games and many, many suggestions for decorations and costumes. All, of course, supplied by the Dennison Manufacturing Co.

Today, collectors use the Bogie Books as bibles of Halloween ephemera.

Dennison Discovers Halloween

Halloween began to take off as a holiday in the late 19^th century. Though trick-or-treating started in the 1920s, it didn’t really become ubiquitous until the 1950s.

Adult Halloween parties were then all the rage, and you could make a lot of money selling Halloween-themed costumes and decorations.

The Dennison factory in Framingham, which churned out tons of Halloween ephemera

The Dennison Manufacturing Co. saw the gold in Halloween ephemera. The 53-year-old company moved to Framingham in 1897 and rocketed to success, according to the Framingham Historical Society. Its factory made so many merchandise tags it gave Framingham the nickname ‘Tag City.’

By the turn of the century, Dennison employed 3,000 people, or about a third of the town’s population. They called its 16-acre campus ‘the Gold Coast.’

In 1909, Dennison started to make Halloween party items, timing the trend perfectly. Dennison became one of the two premier American companies selling Halloween ephemera. The other was the Beistle Company of Shippensburg, Pa.

Today, legions of collectors pay hundreds of dollars for vintage Halloween ephemera made by the two companies. For example, in 1928 Dennison sold a six-section paper table decoration called Hobgoblinville. It charged the then-steep price of $2.00, or about $28 in 2017. Recently it sold for $838.

Unfortunately for Framingham’s workforce, Dennison merged and moved to Pasadena, Calif. The name changed to Avery Dennison Corp.

Halloween Ephemera

Detail from the cover of the 1920 Bogie Book

Collectors especially appreciate the Dennison Bogie Books. “One thing I truly thank Dennison for was their nearly always annual publication of their Halloween Bogie Books,” wrote collector Mark Ledenbach.

Dennison used them as sales and marketing tools, but the collector finds them invaluable for determining the manufacture date of items.

Ledenbach manages a web site for the serious collector of vintage Halloween ephemera. He could barely contain his joy when he came upon an original 1915 Bogie Book with envelope. “OK, WOW!” he wrote. “For avid Halloween paper ephemera collectors, seeing this listing should cause your hearts to race and your sphincters to seize. Seeing this quality listing amongst so much eBay dreck made my day.”

The Bogie Book

The Bogie Book tells us a lot about 20^th century social life before World War II, especially for the upwardly mobile city dweller.

The 1920 book (click here to read it) gives party advice for simple menus, alcohol-free drinks and dancing or cards. Games and decorations seem childlike by today’s standards.

For example, the Bogie Book recommends a lively home party:

When your guests arrive the door should swing open and the hall should be entirely dark, except for a few very faint green lights that may be followed to the dressing rooms.

If your guests are not in costume, the hostess, dressed as a witch, should give each one a hat, a necktie or some other dress accessory to wear.

The business girl’s Halloween party, with H 175 lunch set

For a business girl’s Halloween party, the Bogie Book advises her to carefully prepare her decorations in advance. Crepe paper and cutouts decorate the chandelier and windows. Dennison thoughtfully supplies Lunch Sets (H 175 is featured above) for the table. Doughnuts, oranges or apples may be served ‘dressed up,’ while the menu includes fruit cocktail, chicken patties, potato chips, ice cream, individual cakes and coffee.

Perhaps the strikingly innocent entertainment explains the appeal of the era’s Halloween ephemera.

Fortune-Telling

Fortune-telling games played a big part in the evening festivities, according to the Bogie Book.

“The customs and superstitions that belong to this weird night are almost all connected in some way with future wedded bliss or material welfare,” instructed the 1920 Bogie Book. “Do not fail, therefore, at some time during the evening to have your guests bob for apples in a tub of water, peel apples in one continuous piece and throw the peelings over their left shoulders so that they may fall on the floor to form the initials of the future mate.”

Black cat cutouts

Halloween ephemera plays a big part in the party games. For example, in the game ‘The Witch’s Cats,’ ‘Cat Cut-outs H 35’ should be hidden about the room.

There should be one extra man (or possible there will be an extra girl). Announce that the witch has lost her nine cats and if one of them can be found by the person without a partner it will bring him good luck and he may dance with anyone he wishes. The deposed partner may in turn hunt for a black cat and so get another partner. If the party is large several people may hunt for cats at the same time, and so the cutting in will become quite lively.

This story last updated in 2022.

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Six Indian Trails That Turned Into Scenic Highways and Byways

The Indian trails that crisscrossed New England go back to prehistoric times.

Native Americans migrated from summer to winter homes along the paths, often worn bare by centuries of travel. They used the trails for hunting, trading and making war.

When the English colonists arrived, they owed a debt of gratitude for the Indian trails, wrote Chester B. Price in his book, Historic Indian Trails of New Hampshire.

“[T]hanks to the Indians, the early New Englanders inherited a vast network of trails which not only covered the New England states, but extended as far west as the Rocky Mountains,” Price wrote.

The Mohawk Trail and Kennebec Trail were two of the most famous Indian trails in New England. During the American Revolution, they were used for military maneuvers. Benedict Arnold followed both, the Kennebec Trail to his regret and the Mohawk Trail to his satisfaction – he captured Fort Ticonderoga at the end of it.

We identified six scenic driving routes that follow old Indian trails, at least one in each state. Some have been researched more thoroughly than others. If you know of scenic old Indian trails that can be driven today, please share them in the comments section.

The Old Connecticut Path

The Oliver Ellsworth House lies near one of Connecticut’s Indian trails.

The Old Connecticut Path was one of the most important Indian trails, stretching from Massachusetts Bay to the Connecticut River. In the early 1630s Nipmuck Indians loaded their surplus corn onto birch-bark backpacks and walked from the Connecticut River to Massachusetts Bay. There they traded their corn for copper and iron goods and woolen cloth.

John Oldham, whose death started the Pequot War, followed the Old Connecticut Path to explore the continent’s interior in 1633.

In 1636, the Rev. Thomas Hooker spent two weeks on the Old Connecticut Path with his followers to Hartford.

The Rev. John Wareham also led his congregation along the Old Connecticut Path to Windsor, Conn. John Adams followed that route from Tolland to Windsor in 1771. “Today I rode through paradise,” Adams wrote.

There is no consensus the exact location of the Old Connecticut Path from beginning to end, though genealogical researchers are working on it.

They concluded Adams took a part of the path that goes from the Tolland Green Historic District through the towns of Ellington, East Windsor and South Windsor. Then he went on to the Palisado Green in Windsor.

Generally, the Old Connecticut Path went through Massachusetts heading west along the Charles River in Cambridge, curved south in Wayland through Framingham, to Webster and to Lake Chaubunagungamaug. In Connecticut it continued to Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor.

Today you can download apps that guide driving tours along parts of the Old Connecticut Path in Northeast Connecticut. You can follow John Adams’ route, or you can take other routes that go from Webster, Mass., to Tolland or Woodstock in Connecticut. Another Connecticut route goes from Woodstock to the Willimantic River. (Click here for more information about driving tours.)

Waldoboro Mast Trail (Route 220)

Downtown Waldoboro, which hasn’t changed much since this postcard was published, lies at the end of one of Maine’s old Indian trails.

Maine’s Indians used a vast network of canoe trails to get around, and to reach them they used a series of Indian trails from the interior to the coast. Carrying places, or portages, gave Maine tribes mobility throughout the region. It also let them trade extensively with each other and later with Europeans.

Indian paths from inland Maine to the coast also gave the Native Americans access to fur, birch bark and moose hide. One such path is known as the Waldoboro Mast Trail, which now follows Route 220 from Montville to Waldoboro. It was the most direct route from Lake St. George to the shellfish beds of the seacoast.

Wawenoc Indian families migrated along the path from the seasonal hunting camp to the seasonal fishing camp. They hunted for moose and beaver in the winter and brought their fur as trade goods to the coast using snowshoes, sledges and toboggans.

English settlers found the trail a convenient route to carry masts and spars for hundreds of the King’s ships built in Waldoboro.

Today Route 220 winds through rural Maine from Montville, which has several historic properties and the Frye Mountain Wildlife Management Area. It passes through the scenic towns of Liberty, home of Lake George and the Davistown Museum, and Washington. Travelers know Waldoboro for its commercial clutter on Route 1, which includes the popular eatery Moody’s Diner. The town itself has five nature preserves, a traditional downtown and eight sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

For a map of Route 220, click here.

Mohawk Trail

The Mohawk Trail.

The Mohawk Trail, one of the most famous Indian trails, today is one of the most beautiful drives in Massachusetts. Originally a trade route, it connected the Atlantic Indian tribes with the Iroquois tribes in Upstate New York and Canada.

The trail became a warpath when Mohawk war parties traveled it to destroy Pocumtuck settlements. Metacomet, or King Philip, took the Mohawk trail in 1676 to try to enlist the Mohawks in his cause (he failed). Benedict Arnold then took the Mohawk Trail on his way to capture Fort Ticonderoga.

In 1914, the Massachusetts General Court declared the 63-mile Mohawk Trail a scenic tourist route – the first in the United States.

Today Routes 2 and 2A follow the Mohawk Trail in Massachusetts from Athol to Williamstown. Boosters claim 100 scenic and culture attractions, including the Hail to the Sunrise statue, the Bridge of Flowers, a natural bridge, glacial potholes, pre-revolutionary homes in Old Deerfield, old growth forests and views of the Berkshire and Taconic Mountains.

Highway markers designate the trail. Click here for Mohawk Trail driving tours.

Winnicoek Trail

A seaside estate at Little Boar’s Head along one of New Hampshire’s many old Indian trails.

The Winnicoek Trail ran along the coast from the Merrimack River in Massachusetts through Winnicoek, now Hampton, and along the seashore to the Piscataqua River at Strawbery Banke, now Portsmouth.

The Pennacook and Abenaki Indians migrated along the path in the summer to what is now Odiorne Point. It’s a wooded park along the shoreline with sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean and the Town of New Castle.

When the English colonists arrived in 1635, they used the Winnicoek Trail as a bridle path. Today it’s scenic Route 1A, also known as Ocean Boulevard, running along New Hampshire’s 18-mile shoreline.

Ocean Boulevard passes the wide, sandy beaches in Salisbury, Mass., and Hampton, N.H., then climbs a rocky promontory. Seaside estates begin at the Little Boar’s Head historic district and continue through Rye. Take a detour along Route 1B to wind through the quaint town of New Castle and past the grand old Wentworth-By-The-Sea Hotel. Route 1A finally ends in Portsmouth, a historic seaside city with many fine restaurants and Federal style homes.

Click here for a map of Route 1A.

Pequot Path

Route 1A turns into Ocean Road and the Narragansett Pier.

For hundreds of years, Narragansett and Pequot Indians traveled along the Pequot Path. It ran about 69 miles near the mainland shore from Providence to New London, Conn.

In 1636, Roger Williams took the Pequot path through Apponaug (Warwick) on his journey from Providence to the trading post at Cocumscussoc (near Wickford). “It is admirable to see what paths their naked hardened feet have made in the wilderness in the most stony and rockie places,” he wrote. Williams probably saw a dozen Narragansett villages along 20 miles of the path.

English settlers began using the Pequot Path until it evolved into the lower part of the Boston Post Road. Today, parts of scenic Route 1A (not to be confused with US Route 1A) follow the old Pequot path along the South Coast.

Scenic Route 1A follows the shore from Wickford to Narragansett, past the John H. Chafee Nature Preserve, a good spot to get out and walk to Narragansett Bay. Or, take a detour to the Gilbert Stuart Birthplace. The road passes large, exclusive homes, with views of the bay and the historic Casey Farm. FInally it feeds into Ocean Road past Town Beach to Narragansett Pier.

Click here to see how the Lower Post Road follows existing roads in Rhode Island.

Route 22A

Vergennes, a city that grew up along one of Vermont’s Indian trails.

Route 22A through the Lake Champlain Valley in Vermont was once part of a network of well-worn Indian trails linking villages and other overland trail networks. The western Abenakis of Vermont also used waterways such as the Connecticut River and Lakes Champlain and Memphremagog.

The St. Francis Indians came down from Canada along the trail by Lake Champlain to find warmer fishing grounds. The trail finally stretched to the Bronx, N.Y., where it became known as ‘the road to Bedford and Vermont.’ Today Vermont Route 22A is a continuation of New York Route 22A and a scenic drive in foliage season.

Route 22A goes from Ferrisburgh to historic Vergennes, Vermont’s oldest city. It then runs through Addison, Bridport, Shoreham, Orwell and Fair Haven on the New York border. Along the way lie the Chimney Point State Historic Site, dairy farms, rolling hills, white church steeples, and country inns.

Images: Old County Jail and Museum, Tolland, Conn. By Photograph by Greg O’Beirne – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1391441; Hail to the Sunrise, By This mediaToddC4176 (talk)Original workJoseph Pollia, 1893-1954. – self-made, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36285807; Bridge of Flowers By FFM784 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61250392; https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57432594; Little Boar’s Head By Teemu08 at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1798424; Narragansett Pier By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57432594.

This story about New England Indian trails was updated in 2022.

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Six Colonial Homes by Wallace Nutting

Wallace Nutting was a dyspeptic minister so overwhelmed by urban life and modern values that he led millions of Americans on a nostalgic journey into the colonial age.

As the Martha Stewart of the Colonial Revival, he influenced the décor of countless American homes. He spurred a wave of historic preservation and advanced the study of American decorative arts and architecture.

Wallace Nutting

A nervous breakdown forced Wallace Nutting to retire from the pulpit at 43. He took to selling photographs of rural scenes and colonial homes to earn a living. Before Martha Stewart ever brandished her glue gun, Wallace Nutting created an empire of hand-tinted photographs, books, reproduction furniture and experiences, all evoking a better, happier time. By 1915, he earned $1,000 a day.

As an entrepreneur and a businessman, the Wallace Nutting name stood for quality, according to Charles T. Lyle, executive director of the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, and curator of a recent Nutting exhibit.

Wallace Nutting

“Wallace Nutting was a true pioneer in the emerging fields of historic preservation, and in the study and appreciation of American decorative arts and architecture,” Lyle said. “Nutting created an aesthetic that popularized the use of American antiques that people wanted to have in their own homes and could live with comfortably.”

Historic New England has an online collection of Wallace Nutting photographs, called the Wallace Nutting photographic collection, 1910s-1930s. It’s searchable by state. Click here to see it.

Following are photographs of six colonial homes featured by Wallace Nutting. If you have any Wallace Nutting favorites, please share them in the comments section.

Joseph Webb House

In 1914 Wallace Nutting began buying a series of colonial homes that he called “The Wallace Nutting Chain of Colonial Picture Houses.” They gave him the freedom to create ‘a proper setting for quaint pictures with attractive background and furnishings.’ But he didn’t have to adapt to the schedules and room arrangements of the new house museums.

One of those homes was the Webb House in Wethersfield, Conn. Joseph Webb, a successful merchant with ships that traded in the West Indies, built it in 1752. He died at 34, leaving six children and a widow. Diplomat Silas Deane, executor of the estate, later married Webb’s widow and built a house next door.

Webb’s son Joseph, Jr., inherited the house. In 1774, he hosted Gen. George Washington for five nights while he planned the Siege of Yorktown with the Comte de Rochambeau. It passed through several owners after Webb sold it in 1790. Martin Welles bought it around 1820, and it stayed in his family until 1913. Wallace Nutting bought it in 1916 as a sales office, studio and tourist attraction.

He lovingly photographed the details of the house, including the doors, the fireplaces, the shell dome cupboard and the china inside. For a time the public flocked to Wethersfield to pay 25 cents for admission to the house. World War I and gas rationing interrupted the business.

Nutting sold the house to the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in 1919. Today it belongs to the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum.

211 Main Street, Wethersfield, Conn.

Wadsworth-Longfellow House

Wadsworth House

Since childhood, Wallace Nutting set his heart on becoming a Congregational minister. He grew up in Augusta, Maine, and attended Philips Exeter Academy before entering Harvard. After graduating seminary he took a job as minister at the Fryeburg Congregational Church for a season.

Wallace Nutting was back in Maine in 1914, photographing the Wadsworth House, now the Wadsworth-Longfellow House, in Portland.

Elizabeth and Peleg Wadsworth, a Revolutionary War general, raised 10 children in the house, built in 1785-86. It was the first brick building in Portland and the oldest standing building on the peninsula.

Wadsworth’s grandson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, lived in the house from the time he was 8 months old until he was 35. Henry’s younger sister Anne Longfellow Pierce was the last family member to live in the house. When she died in 1901, she left it to the Maine Historical Society, which has run it as Maine’s first house museum since 1902.

Wallace Nutting was buried in Augusta after he died at home in Framingham, Mass., on July 19, 1941, at age 79.

The Wadsworth-Longfellow House opens to the public from Maine through October; click here for information about hours and directions.

489 Congress Street, Portland, Maine.

Hazen-Spiller House

Wallace Nutting photo of the Hazen-Spiller House, courtesy Historic New England.

Wallace Nutting was born in the village of Gleasondale, Mass., on Nov. 17, 1861. His father died in the Civil War when he was eight months old.

A story about his ancestor resonated with him. The forebear was killed in an Indian raid in Groton, Mass., in 1639, and his head stuck on a pole to warn off new settlers.

Nutting returned to Massachusetts again and again. He bought the Cutler-Bartlett House in Newburyport and the Ironmaster’s House in Saugus.

In 1917 he bought the Hazen-Spiller House in Haverhill, where Indian raiders burned many wood houses. That may have contributed to the decision to have the house made of brick. Many brick makers lived in Haverhill, and the house is notable for both its size and its two fireplaces. Rather than two central fireplaces, the fireplaces in the house stand at either end of the building.

Richard Hazen, member of an early Haverhill family, built the house.

Nutting’s speculated the house was partially a shoe factory and garrison, used by early settlers to escape Indian raids. He dated the house to sometime before 1700. But today historians date it to 1724, after the Indian raids in Haverhill ceased.

Wallace Nutting operated the house as a museum in 1918, though it was not one of his more successful properties. Today the house has private ownership.

The Hazen-Spiller House today

8 Groveland St., Haverhill, Mass.

Wentworth-Gardner House

‘Colonial woman’ descending staircase, Wentworth-Gardner House.

Wallace Nutting eventually took his art of hand-colored photography to a new level. He began to stage scenes of domestic life with people dressed in colonial garb inside of colonial houses, such as the woman descending the staircase, above.

He bought the Wentworth-Gardner House in 1915 and restored it as one of his ‘Chain of Colonial Picture Homes.’ It’s a Georgian-style waterfront mansion in Portsmouth, N.H., built in 1760 by Mark Hunking Wentworth. Mark Wentworth was a wealthy member of the prominent Wentworth family. His brother was colonial Gov. Benning Wentworth. He built the house as a wedding gift for his son Thomas and his daughter-in-law Anne Tasker.

The house itself very nearly wound up in New York City. The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased it with the intention of dismantling it and moving it. But the museum changed its mind and left it in place. The house is notable for the skill of the local craftsmen who carved its intricate details to mimic the tastes of the English aristocracy.

Wentworth-Gardner House

Nutting removed later additions to the building and returned it to its 18th Century appearance. Today it is open to visitors, along with the adjacent Tobias Lear House, as a museum.

140 Mechanic St., Portsmouth, N.H.

Eleazer Arnold House

Nutting had his final pulpit at the Union Congregational Church in Providence. He hated the city, but he found a way to soothe his jangled nerves in the countryside. “I took long bicycle rides on Monday,” he wrote.

On those bicycle trips, he began to take photographs of landscapes. He then made a deal with a local printer to print platinotypes of birches and blossoms of photos he’d taken in Northern New England. Nutting had so much success he opened a studio in New York City, but soon moved to Southbury, Conn.

He photographed the Eleazer Arnold House in Lincoln, R.I. Wheeler, a tavern owner, built the house in 1693. It’s a rare example of a 17^th century ‘stone-ender,’ a house with fieldstone side walls and chimney and wooden end walls. The building type came from western England, mostly to northern Rhode Island.

Nutting’s photograph shows the side stone façade.

The Eleazer Arnold House was donated to Historic New England (then the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities) in 1919, when Wallace Nutting took the photograph. The public can visit on weekends year-round from 11 am-4 pm.

487 Great Road, Lincoln, R.I.

Gen. David Robinson House

David Robinson House

Wallace Nutting collected furniture as props for his photographs, then opened a factory and sold high-quality reproductions. But he lost $100,000 in the venture, he wrote.

His furniture was so authentic unscrupulous dealers bought pieces, aged them artificially and sold them for a hundred times what they paid. Wallace Nutting also published The Furniture Treasury in 1928, which collectors then used as a standard guide for many years.

In the 1920s, Wallace Nutting began publishing his States Beautiful series of travel books. Read his book, Vermont Beautiful, online by clicking here.

David Robinson House

One example of Nutting’s colonial vignettes is this oddly hand-colored photograph of a man and a woman in period dress standing at the gate of the Gen. David Robinson House in Bennington, Vt. The man wears a coat tinted bright red but the woman is in black and white.

General David Robinson, a Revolutionary War general, built his house in 1796. Handed down through the family, in 1912 it contained an invaluable collection of Revolutionary relics. Those included the sword and hat worn by Robinson during the Battle of Bennington.

Monument Avenue, opposite the Robinson marker, Bennington, Vt.

Images: Wallace Nutting images courtesy Historic New England; Wentworth-Gardner House By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28778716; Hazen-Spiller House By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9715789. This story was updated i 2022.

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