HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

Instead of profiling a historic Bostonian or bringing you a dramatic story, let’s read a letter together. This brief letter gives an account of a strange and frightening occurrence on Boston’s Long Wharf in the summer of 1797. Along with one delightfully funny incident, the letter includes details about Boston’s infrastructure and commercial port at the turn of the 19th century. Don’t worry, we’ll flesh out the letter with context from other sources, as well.

Please check out the transcript and full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/177/

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The Deleterious Effects of Marsh Miasmata

• An Account of the Deleterious Effects of Mephitic Air, or Marsh Miasmata, Experienced by Three Men, July 27, 1797. In a Well, on the Boston Pier.
• Description of the well in the Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers.
• William Bentley’s diary entry about going to see the launch of the USS Constitution.
• The Proprietors ask for and get permission to run pipes from Water Street to Long Wharf.
• About confined or artesian groundwater from the National Groundwater Association.

• Jonathan Balch was a pump and block maker.
• An indenture contract for a servant in Balch’s household.
• The below are from the BPL, the BPL, Yale, and the BPL.

Detail of a 1796 map Paul Revere’s view of the British troops landing in 1797 J. Carwitham’s view of Long Wharf Early 19th century view of the businesses on Long Wharf Boston Book Club

Centennial of the Boston Pier, Or the Long Wharf Corporation, 1873 is a privately published volume celebrating the 100th anniversary of the company that operated Long Wharf. Because this episode is about Long Wharf, so is the book. It’s basically the minutes of an annual stockholders meeting, so most of it isn’t terribly exciting. There is some early history of Long Wharf, but even that isn’t terribly accurate. However, the otherwise dry tome contains one gem. Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote and recited a poem for the occasion. Check it out!

Upcoming Event

Just a week after announcing that the upcoming event would be cancelled for the duration of our social distancing experiment, a now a handful of groups began scheduling online, virtual, covid-19-safe events. First up is a Wikipedia edit-a-thon on Tuesday, March 31. Simmons University is hosting an online meetup to encourage people to research, create, and expand Wikipedia entries relating to women’s history.

A number of factors contribute to underrepresentation of women’s history on the platform, including the fact that only 10% of Wikipedians are women, meaning that the unconscious biases of male editors can have an outsized effect. Not only that, but female subjects often face a “notability” gap, where articles about even historically significant women are rejected as not being notable enough to justify an article. This gathering will attempt to offset some of that imbalance by focusing on the women who fought for suffrage and civil rights. Here’s how their meetup page describes it:

We are co-hosting an edit-a-thon to help make women’s history more visible on Wikipedia. It’s the second event in our “Digitizing Women’s History series” marking the 100th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

Our thematic focus is on activists, especially suffrage and civil rights activists who were or are women of color. The event is open to all. Join us whether or not you’ve ever edited Wikipedia entries before!

Keep an eye on their meetup page as they add suggested topics, including specific women whose entries need to be expanded or created, as well as organizations and events to write about. It includes tips on how to write for Wikipedia, potential sources to use for research, and details on how to connect to a Zoom video chat with two mentors during the edit-a-thon.