Susan Dimock was among the first female physicians in the US recognized as a surgeon. Apprenticed at the age of 18 to Dr. Marie Zakrzewska at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, Susan was recognized as exceptionally talented. In September of 1873, a seven-year-old girl from Nantucket was admitted to the NEHWC with a large tumor. Using ether as anesthetic, Dr. Dimock performed an operation to remove the tumor.
Read MoreIn August 2020 the JPHS was contacted by Keith Hammitte, who owns the house at 24 John A. Andrews Street. Keith had found an old toolbox in his basement containing hundreds of financial records of Robert F. Knapp, who had previously lived in the house.
Read MoreJamaica Plain Spoken was a video/interview project that JP musician Rick Berlin started with his friend Todd Drogy in 2004. It consists of over sixty interviews with people of all genders, beliefs, ages and ethnicities. Just a bunch of local characters describing their lives and offering their opinions about Jamaica Plain. The project was stopped due to a lack of funding, so the YouTube clips are all that remain. Those links are gathered here.
Read MoreA brief biography of Christopher Jackson Spenceley, a Boston businessman of the latter half of the 19th century who constructed the C.J. Spenceley Block in 1888. The yellow brick building that stands at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and West Walnut Park.
Read MoreLearn about the Glennon family living in Jamaica Plain and Roxbury from 1880-1940. Employment in the Thomas G. Plant Shoe Factory and the Burton Brewery provided the family with both opportunity and hardship.
Read MoreWalter Hoerner worked for Haffenreffer Brewery from 1933 to 1959. He was the chief engineer at Haffenreffers's property at 251 Heath Street. The building was used primarily for storage and as a workshop for coopers who built and repaired wood barrels.
Read MoreIn 1918 a US Coast Guard Cutter was torpedoed in the Irish Sea. One of its victims was from Jamaica Plain. One hundred years later his next-of-kin is being sought to receive the Purple Heart awarded to Lt. John Thomas Carr.
Read MoreOn the crest of Milton Hill, the highest drumlin in Forest Hills Cemetery, lie two recumbent stone lions shaded by upright Japanese yews, part of a monument honoring the artisan Pietro Caproni.
Read MoreA collection of 956 film negatives that document James Michael Curley during the years 1934-1958.
Read MoreThis story of the last practicing blacksmith in JP is based both on personal observation of Lovett’s McBride Street blacksmith shop in the 1940s and 1950s, and on an April 2017 interview with John R. Lovett, the last farrier’s son.
Read MoreLife for this busy man, who created more than 180 pieces of sculpture in less than fifty hears, circled around his home in Jamaica Plain MA, his studio, his professorship as head of the Sculpture Department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
Read MoreA serendipitous journey of discovery kicked off by an Ebay offering of “three journals about Jamaica Plains, Mass.”
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