#massachusetts history

[life-of-a-rat]

I saw this meme in a dream

[basementofthebizarre]

The Mysteries of the Bridgewater Triangle: Exploring New England's Paranormal Hotspot

Nestled in southeastern Massachusetts, the Bridgewater Triangle is an area shrouded in mystery, folklore, and paranormal phenomena. Spanning approximately 200 square miles, this region has garnered a reputation as one of the world’s most active paranormal hotspots, drawing in researchers, thrill-seekers, and curious visitors alike. From ghostly encounters to UFO sightings and cryptid sightings,…

[muleydoestreasurehoard]

[forthosebefore]

Women pioneers of reparations

I’ve previously posted about Henrietta Wood. Here are some other early women pioneers for reparations.

Belinda Sutton

Belinda (Royal) Sutton was born in 1712 in Ghana. She was abandoned by her enslaver, who had offered emancipation upon his death or her transfer to his daughter. If she chose freedom he provided 30 pounds for three years so she wouldn’t be a public charge. In 1783, at 63 years old, Sutton filed a petition to the Massachusetts General Court requesting a pension from the estate of her former enslaver. In her petition she recalled her life in Africa as a joyful one full of love prior to her captivity and enslavement. Sutton’s testimony describing the happy times with family in Africa contradicted the narrative that the enslaved were happy in their captivity. She won her claim and was awarded 15 pounds and 12 shillings annually. She had to fight continuously for that award to be honored and paid.

Belinda Sutton’s […] petition of 1783 is among the earliest narratives by an African American woman. […] It has been seen by some commentators as the first call for reparations for American slavery [and] opens a rare window onto the life on an enslaved woman in colonial North America.

To read the full text of Belinda Sutton’s first petition, click here. All of her petitions are available through the Antislavery Petitions Massachusetts Dataverse, maintained by Harvard University.

Callie House

Callie House was born enslaved in Rutherford County, Tennessee, in 1861. In 1897, at 36 years old, she founded the National Ex-Slave Mutual Bounty and Pension Association (MB&PA) to seek financial support for former slaves left without resources. With Isiah Dickerson she traveled to former slave states to encourage others to join the organization. The organization was eager to petition Congress for a bill that would grant payments (reparations) and mutual aid for burial expenses. Their grass-roots advocacy grew in membership to hundreds of thousands of formerly enslaved residents all over the country. The government used three agencies to try to stop this movement: the Federal Bureau of Pensions, the Department of Justice and the Post Office Department. On September 1899, the Post Office issued a fraud order, without evidence, against MB&PA, which made it illegal for them to send mail, cash or money orders. House resisted by invoking the 1st, 14th and 15th amendments and hiring an attorney.

Congress rejected the pensions petition, as if it was not to be taken seriously, and postponed it indefinitely.

In 1909, when Dickerson died, House became the leader of the MB&PA. In 1915, under House’s leadership, the class action lawsuit Johnson v McAdoo was filed in U.S. Federal Court requesting reparations for slavery in the amount of $68 million. This amount was cotton tax money collected from 1862 to 1868 and held by the U.S. Treasury Department. A former slave, H. N. Johnson, led the charge as the plaintiff against U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the claim. This was the first documented litigation for reparations for American chattel slavery in a U.S. federal court.

The following year, House was arrested on charges of fraud from the Post Office, convicted by an all-white, all-male jury and sentenced to a year in jail, deliberately hampering the reparations movement.

Callie House died from cancer in Nashville, Tennessee on June 6, 1928, at the age of 67. Source: Greenbelt News Review, BlackPast.org, RoyallHouse.org

Visit www.attawellsummer.com/forthosebefore to learn more about Black history and read new blog posts first.

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[faithandarisadventures]

History of Worcester's Blackstone River October 12, 2023 Blackstone Gateway Park Worcester, Massachusetts

[stavrosskundromichalis]

The Friday dinosaur dance theme continues with a pair of Podokesaurus holyokensis doing the Monster Mash in the woods of Massachusetts during the Early Jurassic 🎃🦖👻

[turtleislandhistory]

September 1, 1897

The first underground rapid transit system in North America, the Tremont Street Station, opens in Boston, Massachusetts.

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Could we please have some fun facts about the great state of Massachusetts?

Massachusetts is by far the likeliest state in America to have a Nantucket. Several reports of at least one Martha's Vineyard and possibly even a Cape Cod have also emerged. If true, it would make Massachusetts the spiralliest state, as Cape Cod is basically the golden spiral of Capes as well as Cods.

Massachusetts has a rich history, which for some reason my old schoolbooks only date back to 1620 despite the area likely having existed before then. History in Massachusetts consists of tea parties, men with the last name Adams, towns also named Adams, and also Matt Damon, who was born Adam A. Adams.

Massachusetts also has a rich future, including the Boston Retro Speedrun Festival where the Super Mario 4:50 barrier will be broken, the Boston Phoning-In Music Festival where Ariana Grande will reveal her next new ethnicity, and the Boston Molasses Factory Grand Reopening, at which nothing at all will go wrong.

[mrskennedy]

Senator John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie Kennedy on Election Day, 1958.

[humanoidhistory]

Head-measuring device at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center, Massachusetts, ca. 1951-1984.

[thoughtartistry]

Salem, Massachusetts is a must visit spooky season. The heart of Halloween in New England. 🎃

[seasonallydefective]

Found it!! Here’s a photo of the William Dean House at 71 Fairfield Avenue — photo is from sometime within 1887-1889.

I can’t believe that this big, beautiful, 1887 Queen Anne Victorian in Holyoke, Massachusetts is under $1M. It has 7bd., 3.5ba. and is priced at $549,900. Kind of disappointed in some of the reno, though.

Keep reading

[marzipanandminutiae]

Ask not for whom the 300-year-old chipotle is photographed

It is photographed for thee

(also, I would like to respond briefly to someone who commented on the other post I made featuring the 300 year old chipotle, and Who seemed to think that I was entirely opposed to the idea. While I wish the building was still a bookstore, as it was for many years between being a publisher’s office and being a chipotle, the choice was basically between a chipotle and a parking garage. Meaning, the only way the building stays standing is because it’s rented out to businesses. so all things considered, I’m pretty happy to have the chipotle there for the moment)

[swforester]

Granville MA 10/30/24