HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

Vote for us as the “Fan Favorite” at this year’s Boston Preservation Awards!

Since last week’s show was about Boston’s 1851 Railroad Jubilee, which was an enormous celebration at a time when the nation was in the midst of a rush toward civil war, it seemed appropriate to discuss the Grand Peace Jubilee this week. Held in Boston in 1869, when the war was still a raw wound on the American psyche, the Peace Jubilee was a musical spectacular unlike anything the world had ever seen. Composer Patrick Gilmore hoped to bind the country together and help it heal… and if he happened to get rich in the process, that would just be icing on the cake. This week’s show also revisits another peacetime memory of the Civil War in Boston. In 1903, after the pain of the Civil War had dulled, Boston gathered at what is now the “General Hooker Entrance” to the State House to dedicate a statue to the highest ranking general from Massachusetts during the war.

Please check out the transcript and full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/204/

And support the show on Patreon.

Jubilee Days

• Patrick Gilmore’s 700 page memoir of the 1869 Peace Jubilee.
• A History of the Wind Band by Dr Stephen L Rhodes.
• “Big Boom in Boston,” by Rufus Jarman, American Heritage, October 1969
• American Music Preservation on the Boston Peace Jubilees.
• A satirical letter to the editor of Mose Skinner’s Great Peace Festival and Pow-Wow.
• William Dean Howells reviews the 1869 Jubilee in the Atlantic Monthly.
• Souvenir medal from the 1869 Jubilee.
• Library of Congress blog post comparing Republican and Democratic opinions of the 1869 Jubilee.
• An illustrated magazine of the 1872 Jubilee.
• Map showing the location of the 1872 Jubilee.
• Looking for a children’s book version of this week’s story? Check out Jubilee! One Man’s Big, Bold, and Very, Very Loud Celebration of Peace by Alicia Potter with illustrations by Matt Tavares.

The “waffle pattern” photo Members of the anvil chorus pose in the Public Garden 1869 Exterior 1872 Exterior 1869 Interior 1872 Interior September 1869 September 1869 September 1869 1872 exterior; simulated 3d via NYPL’s stereogranimator 1872 interior; simulated 3d via NYPL’s stereogranimator Hooker Day Hooker mounted in 1903 Master Joseph Hooker Wood and the sculptors Route of the parade Recalling Hooker’s glory days The State House decked out in bunting with a shrouded statue Ready for the unveiling

• Legislation authorizing the erection of a statue of General Hooker at the State House.
• Proceedings of the Boston City Council as they prepared for Hooker Day.
• The program from the dedication ceremonies for the statue.
• Coverage from the Boston Post on June 24 and June 26.
• A nice article from the Las Vegas Daily Optic, right next to their coverage of a Harvard-Yale crew race.
• The Washington DC Evening Star covered the parade.
• The Daily Times of Barre, VT had a story.
• Boston Globe articles from June 21, June 22, June 24, June 25, and June 26.
• Even the newsletter of the Concord Reformatory for Boys published an article about Hooker Day.
• Representative Michelle DuBois puts her foot in it, and tries to clarify.

Boston Book Club

You may remember that almost exactly a year ago, we featured an excellent series of articles by “The Passionate Foodie,” aka Richard Auffrey, about the history of Chinatown and Chinese restaurants in Boston. Auffrey is back this month with another series of three (so far) articles about the history of Syrian-Americans and Syerian restaurants in Boston, from the 1880s to the present day. They start with a wave of Syrian immigration to Boston in the 1880s, with a new “little Syria” springing up around what’s now Ping-On Alley off Essex Street in Chinatown. From the first mentions of a Syrian restaurant in the press in 1899, Auffrey walks through the menu offerings of a 19th century Syrian-American restaurant, from Kubbe to Yabrak to ice cream. He uses the rise of Syrian restaurants to follow the growth of the local Syrian-American population and the size of Little Syria.

After summarizing the Syrian restaurant scene through the 1920s, the next article dives into the history of one specific restaurant. The long-shuttered Sahara Restaurant in the South End originally opened in 1965, and (for somewhat murky reasons) closed again in 1972. Amazingly, the sign has remained up over the door ever since, and the same family has owned the building since at least the early 70s, and maybe since the restaurant originally opened.

Finally, the third article discusses a Hudson Street restaurant called “the Nile.” When it was open from the late 1930s through the late 60s, it was referred to as “the most famous syrian restaurant this side of the pyramids,” at least in their own marketing materials. As Auffrey points out in the article, it’s a bit odd that they chose to name their restaurant after the Nile river and refer to the pyramids in their marketing, because neither of those things existed in Syria. However, during the era when the restaurant opened, Egypt was about the closest reference most Americans had for the Middle East, so the Salem (sah-laem) family who owned the joint just rolled with it. At first they served mostly the 16,000 or so Syrian immigrants who lived in Boston in the 1930s and 40s, but expanded the business as word of their delicious lamb skewers and lubiah stew spread among Yankee Boston. Head chef Deeb “George” Salem was an expert pastry chef, and he may have been responsible for introducing baclava to the Boston palate.

Using his typical style of mining newspaper databases and examining old menus, Richard Auffrey traces the rising popularity of the restaurant through its increasing nightly capacity, as well as the string of celebrity guests, including movie stars, the Kennedys, and the Saudi royal family. He also weaves in details of how the Arab-Israeli conflict affected staff at the restaurant, how urban renewal in Boston impacted the location of the restaurant, and the eventual decline and bankruptcy of the restaurant.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Upcoming Events

October 1st: You may recall that in episode 132, we described how in 1745, a volunteer army of Massachusetts militia, through good leadership, gallant conduct, and sheer dumb luck, managed to defeat the French fortress Louisbourg, the strongest fortress in North America at the time. While our podcast talked a bit about the thought process behind Royal Governor William Shirley’s decision to besiege the fortress, we focused more on the tactics of the battlefield, and the results of the victory. In the talk “Rule Britannia: Imperial Patriots and the Siege of Louisbourg of 1745,” Amy Watson, of the University of Southern California will focus on the men who joined the siege and their political motivations. Here’s how the MHS describes the event:

In 1745, a group of New England volunteers who called themselves Patriots launched an expedition against the French fortress of Louisbourg, in present-day Nova Scotia. Who were these “Patriots”? What did they want with Louisbourg? And what can this incident tell us about British imperial politics in the mid-eighteenth century? This expedition reveals that the British Empire was dividing on sharp partisan lines in the 1740s, laying the groundwork for the revolutionary decades to come.

October 7: Come see me give a talk for Old North Church Historic Site about the lost tunnels of the North End, on Wednesday, October 7 at 7pm. It will be a lot like the podcast, except you’ll be able to see me and my slides, you won’t have to consult the show notes for the visual aids I want to share, and I won’t be able to edit out all my embarrassing ums and ahs and awkward pauses. Here’s how Old North is describing the event:

If you’ve ever taken a walking tour of Boston’s North End, or if you’ve talked to the old timers in the neighborhood, you’ve probably heard stories about the network of so-called secret pirate tunnels or smugglers’ tunnels that connects the wharves to the basements of houses, Old North Church, and even crypts in Copp’s Hill burying ground. Sometimes the tunnels are attributed to a Captain Gruchy, who’s often called a pirate or a smuggler, and who is portrayed as a shadowy figure. The legends of pirate tunnels in the North End were inspired by a few subterranean discoveries in the late 1800s, but the fantastic details in stories told by tour guides and popular authors are just that: fantasy. However, there is truth underlying the legends, and there are tunnels underlying the streets of the North End.

October 15: One of the few bright spots in this pandemic season is that the Boston Preservation Alliance will hold the ceremony for their Boston Preservation Awards online this year, and it will be open to all. That means you can come hang out as HUB History wins a Preservation Award in the Advocacy Project category. Here’s what the Alliance said about us:

Boston has always been a city built on history: museums, iconic buildings, and monuments are an essential part of the city’s self-definition and tourism draw. Today more than ever, that history spreads beyond physical places. The Hub History Podcast tells the stories of Boston’s history through a medium that has surged in popularity. The talented duo that produces the podcast bring Boston history alive by making the past accessible and relevant to a wide audience, far beyond the bounds of familiar sites.

“The means to engage people with the history of Boston have grown dramatically, and the Hub History podcast is a wonderful way to expand the connection of the broader public to our past,” says Greg Galer, Executive Director of the Boston Preservation Alliance. “The more people who are informed and enthusiastically connected to the stories of the places and people of Boston, the more engagement we have with the desire to preserve these places for future generations. To understand a historic place and the events that happened there is to recognize its value and its connections to lessons valuable to us today.”

We hope that you’ll attend the awards ceremony, but even if you don’t please vote for us as the preservation awards’ “Fan Favorite.” Each unique email address can vote once each day, so please vote early and often, and help us take home a second award!