HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

Faneuil Hall’s grasshopper weathervane is 4 feet long, weighs about 80 pounds, and is made out of copper that’s been covered with 23 carat gold. It’s found at the top of an 8 foot spire above Faneuil Hall’s cupola, which is in turn seven stories above ground level. So imagine the surprise that swept Boston on a January day in 1974 when people looked up and realized that the grasshopper was gone.

Please check out the transcript and full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/196/

And support the show on Patreon.

Gold Gilded Grasshopper The Grasshopper Faneuil Hall from above The flagpole in Feb 1974 Shem Drowne’s first weathervane Shem Drowne’s 1740 weathervane at Old North The Grasshopper

• Thomas Prince’s diary entry about the 1737 riot
• John Burt’s diary entry about the 1737 riot
• The Boston News Letter reports on the 1737 riot
• 1994 Boston Landmarks Commission report
• Ben Edwards’ helpful timeline of the Grasshopper weathervane
• John Adams opens his famous diary with a description of the 1755 earthquake
• John Winthrop’s lecture on earthquakes
• John Winthrop’s more concise description of the 1755 earthquake’s effect, including knocking the grasshopper to the ground.
• A somewhat fanciful description of the 1755 earthquake in American Heritage
• Notes on the 1761 fire
• Boston Globe coverage of the weathervane’s theft and recovery: January 5, January 6, January 9, January 11, January 12, January 13, January 23, January 24.
• Thomas Drowne’s weathervane at the MFA.
• 1974 header image by Spencer Grant.

Boston Book Club

Since Faneuil Hall is at the center of this week’s story, this week’s Boston Book Club selection will give you a broader history of Boston’s premier market. Strictly speaking, Faneuil Hall is the single brick building that opened in 1742 on the former site of Boston’s town dock. But when people say they’re going to Faneuil Hall, they probably mean that they’ll also visit the 19th century granite market building behind Faneuil Hall, and perhaps the former warehouses that flank it on either side. This entire market complex is Quincy Market, named after Boston Mayor Josiah Quincy III. It opened 84 years after the original market site, in 1826.

Quincy’s Market: a Boston Landmark was written by John Quincy, Jr, an eleventh generation descendant of the Quincy family whose name adorns the market complex. Here’s how the publisher describes it:

A bustling commercial center and favorite tourist attraction on Boston’s historic waterfront, Quincy Market, the popular name for Faneuil Hall Marketplace, draws throngs of visitors to the magnificent granite buildings and cobblestone concourses that house the area’s specialty shops, restaurants, boutiques, pushcarts, and food stalls. Yet few are aware of the history of this legendary public place and its importance in the history of Boston and the nation. In this elegantly written and lavishly illustrated work, John Quincy, Jr., tells the absorbing story of the Market’s unique evolution over the centuries. Beginning with John Winthrop’s landing at the Great Cove on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630, Quincy weaves together a remarkable tapestry of the district’s rise, fall, and rebirth.

Upcoming Event

The Gibson House is a unique time capsule of Victorian Boston, as it was built in 1860, only very minimally updated since then, and left completely untouched since its last owner died in 1954. This undiscovered gem of a museum has been getting more attention in recent months, because it was used as a set in the recent Little Women movie.

The last owner of the house was Charles Gibson, Junior, who is the subject of the event. Charlie grew up in the Gibson house, and then moved back in after his father’s death in 1916. He cultivated a persona as the ultimate Boston Brahmin, a throwback to an earlier era. A later profile in the Boston Herald described him as “a Proper Bostonian whose Victorian elegance puts modern manners to shame,” and “a small man…with a nimble, if sometimes cantankerous physique…He strolls around with a sort of swagger stick with a silver tip out of deference to the fact that gold would be too vulgar.” He affected an English accent and was always quick to mention his ties to the elites of Boston, London, and Paris.

Charlie Gibson maintained his eccentric ways right up until the end. Into the 1950s, he kept up a habit of walking to the Ritz Carlton Hotel every night, where he would take his dinner in a full tuxedo and tails, top hat, and a raccoon coat in cold weather. Charlie, who was a lifelong bachelor and wrote an entire book of love poems that never mentioned a woman, has recently reemerged as a sort of gay icon for the LGBTQ history of early 20th century Boston.

Since their special “Charlie Gibson’s Queer Boston” themed tour had to be cut short when the pandemic began, the Gibson House will be offering a virtual version at 6pm on August 4th. Here’s how they describe it:

Explore the Gibson House and the gay subculture of early-twentieth-century Boston through Charlie Gibson’s eyes. The story of the Museum’s founder is one of legacy and family history, of the fading grandeur of Victorian-era Boston, and of Boston’s LGBTQ history.

The suggested donation for this event is $5 – $15, and advanced registration is required to get the Zoom connection details, additional reading materials, and a recipe for the evening’s themed cocktail.