Curiosities of History: Boston, September Seventeenth, 1630-1880

However, the causeway was built, and the mill-pond and the water-power it furnished, used for more than a hundred years without any special publicity or inquiry concerning them....

There can be no doubt that it became necessary, as early as possible, for the settlers to seek means for their future subsistence. The stock and supply of provisions brought ove...

John Dunton, in his famous work, "Dunton's Life and Errors," speaks of the government, when he was in Boston, in 1686. He says, "Let it be enough to say, The laws in force here,...

There were numerous curious names in use among the tradespeople, as the Six Sugar-Loaves, probably a grocer, in Union Street, 1733; Three Sugar-Loaves and Canister, grocer, in K...

It is said that the first newspaper ever issued was at Venice in 1583,[7] called "The Gazette,"--and this was in manuscript,--unless (as has been reported) there was an older pa...

"That man can't be prevail'd upon Tho' with our strong desire, To get prepar'd against the Day When all the World on Fire Shall burn and blaze about their Heads, And they no She...

"And, Oh! that the Drinking Houses in the Town, might once come under a laudable _Regulation_. The Town has an _Enormous Number_ of them! Will the _Haunters_ of those _Houses_ h...

It seems proper to say in offering this little volume to the public, that no attempt has been made to exhaust the subjects of which the papers respectively treat; but rather to...

The author gives a peculiar description of the animals named. Of the lion, he says he had never seen one; but others "lost in the woods have heard such terrible roarings as have...