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Dan Fuller: The Famous Hermit of Kingston
(November 19, 2004)
“I tell ye,” said Dan, ”I come ‘long jes’ now,
and there was seven ducks down there in the pond — splendid shot’. I crept up
close to and let her bang, killed every dam’ one except six and the other one
got away...”
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The Day the Hometown Heroes Returned
(October 22, 2004) Once upon a time
before “Red” states and “Blue” states, patriotism was not a partisan
position, but a deeply held community value. This month marks the 85th
anniversary of the day on Saturday, October 18, 1919, when Kingston
residents...
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The Day the Children Died
(August 20, 2004) Several months ago while interviewing Margaret Warnsman she
happened to mention in passing a tragic accident resulting in the deaths of
"three of four" Kingston school children...
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Large Slow Target...
(July 16, 2004)
Not everyone in town knows Gene Creedon but everyone
knows the house he lives in. He’s the guy who owns the colonial era home at
the point where Main Street and Summer Street join just north of the Jones
River Bridge.
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Memories of Kingston History
(May 21, 2004)
At age 93, Margaret Warnsman is one of the last true Kingston
"Townies." Margaret was born on January 18, 1911 in her mother’s home across
from the Fish Market on Summer Street in Kingston center...
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The
Scent of History
(April 19, 2004)
Memory
is a funny thing and researchers have long known that smells can evoke
stronger and more vivid memories than any other stimuli – including sounds
and images. An offhand sniff of Molasses the other day triggered long forgotten memories...
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History Bits ‘n Pieces
NEARLY 5% of the Kingston men under arms during the Revolutionary War
were slaves from some of the town’s most prominent families. After the war
was won, each of the slaves was given the freedom they had earned along with
a 94-acre tract of land in Plymouth.
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When Christmas Was
Outlawed
(December 19, 2003)
Christmas was anything except merry in colonial Kingston and early New
England. To look at history, you would think the Grinch family once ruled.
Only instead of stealing Christmas, the Massachusetts Bay Colony outlawed
the celebration of Christmas.
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When
Yesterday is a Lifetime
Away
(September 18, 2003) History is nothing more than our collective memories
of an event. But memory is volatile and subject to erosion. The grit and dust of
day-to-day living tends to grind away fine details. With the passage of enough
time even the specifics blur and blend together and we're left with shadows of
memory. Hiding in the shadows, like diamonds in a coal bin, are scattered bits
and pieces of brilliant detail.
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The
Secrets of Dust Devils & Thunder Math
(July
25, 2003)
My father taught me a trick to measure my distance
away from a lightning storm and the length of a lightning bolt. It’s a trick I
still use today. Here’s how it works. |
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If all goes according to plan --
we will all die orphans
(July
25, 2003)
Charles H. Randall was my father and he used to tell me that if everything went
according to plan we would all die orphans. A few minutes before 5:00 o’clock on
the morning of July 20th half of the plan came to pass as he slipped quietly
from this world into the next. |
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Disestablishmentarianism
(March
20, 2003) Nearly three hundred years
after Kingston was founded, the final steps for the ‘separation of church
and state’ are being taken. Just last month the congregation of the First
Parish Church voted to accept an agreement hammered out between the town’s
selectmen and members of that church’s parish committee.
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A Burning Desire to Join the Gold Rush...
(May 16, 2003)
Second of two parts. Mrs. D.B. Bates was a young woman from Kingston who
traveled with her husband to the California gold fields. Along the way she had
three ships burn out from under her and had an entire city burn to the ground
around her. Then things got interesting...
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A Gold Rush
Journey...
(March 20, 2003)
Back in 1857, all of America was reading the words of Mrs. D. B.
Bates, a Kingston native who sailed to California in 1850 on board a
coaler commanded by her husband. Her book had the wordy title of,
"Incidents on land and water, or Four years on the Pacific coast.
Being a narrative of the burning of the ships Nonantum,
Humayoon and Fanchon, together with many startling and
interesting adventures on sea and land."
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They Don't Make
the Past Like They Used To...
(January 16, 2003)
I've learned a thing or two about Kingston
and our collective yesterdays while writing a year's worth of local
history columns for the Observer. For one thing, the past can be
deceptively alluring.
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Christmas in Kingston
(December 2002)
As a young child, Christmas in Kingston was the highlight of the year. I
spent summers in Kingston with my grandmother and grandfather while my
parents toured the country doing summer-stock theater (my dad was a
professor of Drama at Ithaca college). Summers were wonderful but
Christmas was the best!
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As Recalled by Margaret Warnsman
Memories of Miss. Elizabeth B. Sampson
(November 2002)
I’ve turned
this month’s history column over to a fine lady who’s been around almost
forever. What others call history, Margaret Warnsman knows as memory.
She has searched the archives to compile a short bio on the life of
Elizabeth B. Sampson, a generous but somewhat mysterious benefactor of
Kingston.
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The Saga of the Ship on the Seal - Part II
Captivity and Redemption
(October 2002)
After the Brig
Independence was captured by the British, Samson and his crew spent
the winter aboard a Royal prison ship in Halifax harbor. Men froze to
death and resorted to eating drowned rats just to stay alive.
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Her captain once dressed
as a woman to escape capacity...
Saga of the Ship on the Seal - Part I
(September 2002)
Although the image of the Brig
Independence graces Kingston’s town seal, the history of the ship
and the saga of Simeon Samson, her Captain, remains a bit of a mystery
to many in Kingston.
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Kingston Memories
It's odd, but many of the things we believed as children we later
ridicule as adults. I remember the summers around Silver Lake in
Kingston. It's the place where the child in me grew old.
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Arson at the Bradford
House
During King Philip’s War, the Bradford House was the target of an Indian
war party in 1676.
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Ahh! the memories...
Summer are better than others
(June 21) Summers
were delightful paradoxes - at once both endless and all too brief.
Summer was, above all, the season to build memories.
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Factoids & Short Takes
Back in the days when phone
numbers contained fewer digits that your Social Security, number
Kingston’s 585 prefix was known as JUstice-5 or JUno-5 (JU corresponds
to the 5 and 8 on the standard telephone dial.)
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Kingston's Connection to
Black History
There is a slender thread woven into the fabric of Kingston’s historical
record which connects the town to America’s Black History.
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Fire and Ice on Silver
Lake
Myrtle Bradford Higgins was my grandmother and she was an old Yankee
with a distinctively ‘down-east’ accent. She ran a General Store at the
end of Grove Street and was the last postmistress of the Silver Lake
Post Office. She lived and breathed history. To hear her talk, the Civil
War ended last month and the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock a little
over a year ago.
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Think you know all about Kingston?
Take our
Online History Quiz
We've got
to warn you... some of the questions are pretty tough. Our editors had
to take the test a few
times before they passed.
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A ‘Living’ Link to the Civil War...
My family tree was
infested by shutterbugs and pack rats. My ancestors took pictures by the
score and saved them by the trunk-full in dusty attics. One rainy day I
was rummaging through a collection of tin-types and glass plate
negatives when I came across the photo pictured at left.
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