Memorial Day was born in 1866, out of the Civil War, and has grown to become a holiday to commemorate the dead of all wars.
Read More
Our Civil War street names focus on heroes of the war: the naval officer Porter, the general Sheridan, post-war president Andrew Johnson, Massachusetts war governor John Albion Andrew (also seen above an arch on the Monument), and perhaps, in a magnificent gesture, Southern commander-in-chief Robert E. Lee.
Read More
A good many people besides the doctors are beginning to realize that nervous diseases are alarmingly on the increase. To use that abominable word which nowadays parades all newspaperdom, nerves are the most “prominent” complaints of the nineteenth century - at least, on this side of the water.
Read More
The material that appears below was excerpted from National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form prepared by Candace Jenkins, Massachusetts Historical Commission, and Judith McDonald, Boston Landmarks Commission in March 1981 and was entered into the Register on June 1, 1982.
Read More
1897- This sketch was prepared by request to be read before the Jamaica Plain Ladies' Tuesday Club. Subsequently a desire was expressed to have it put in a more permanent form and offered for sale at a Fair for the Jamaica Plain Indian Association. Although personally reluctant to appear before the public in this way, I have allowed my desire to aid a good cause and give pleasure to my friends who have kindly received my paper to influence me in its publication.
Read More
The beginnings of baseball in Boston and its first connection to Jamaica Plain are found with Harry Wright and his brother George. Harry was born in England.
Read More
Isabella and John Joyce were the children of a Lynn dressmaker recently widowed. On Monday, June 12, 1865, they left their aunt’s home in the South End with a picnic basket and carfare for a day in the famed Jamaica Plain countryside.
Read More
Beer making in Boston was in its heyday in the early 1900s. Try to imagine the clatter of horse-drawn, iron-wheeled, wagons bringing raw materials in and finished product out of the 24 breweries in the Stony Brook valley.
Read More
The following material was drawn from the nomination form to the National Register of Historic Places for the Bowditch School on Green Street which was submitted on May 4, 1989.
Read More
The Boylston Schul-Verein was granted its charter by the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on September 17, 1874. This official date of incorporation was preceded by an initiative of a number of citizens of German descent living in the Boylston Station section of Jamaica Plain to found a club in 1871.
Read More
When people talk about the Boston Police stable—and they have a lot lately, with the disbanding of the police horse unit—few of them know the term doesn’t do the place justice. Tucked away on a corner of the Brandegee Estate on the Boston/Brookline border at 165 Allandale St., the stable is likely Jamaica Plain’s least-known grand historic building.
Read More
A discussion of one of the two grand Victorian estates which eventually were carved out of the original land grant received by Joseph Weld in 1642. Despite pleasant views from the outside inwards, the estate’s hidden crown jewel is the Georgian Revival mansion, with seventy-nine rooms, built in 1901 for Mrs. Sprague.
Read More