The Secret History of Boston

[Mangrove]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Miller_(preacher)

This guy was mixed up in the Schollay Square thing, owning the original property the old Howard Theater rested on.  He was discredited when the world failed to end, and moved on.  Some of his disciples went missing en masse at some point before then.  "Millerites" continued to spread out from the area, even after Miller's prophecies didn't come true.

The Millerites split into factions which, ultimately lead to the formation of The Jehovah's Witness and the Seventh Day Adventists.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Miller_(preacher)

This guy was mixed up in the Schollay Square thing, owning the original property the old Howard Theater rested on.  He was discredited when the world failed to end, and moved on.  Some of his disciples went missing en masse at some point before then.  "Millerites" continued to spread out from the area, even after Miller's prophecies didn't come true.

The Millerites split into factions which, ultimately lead to the formation of The Jehovah's Witness and the Seventh Day Adventists.

Yep.  And it's BOSTON'S FAULT.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

The theme of the creepy thing about New England being the land itself I'm just now picking up from Twid and LMNO's recent writings.  All the strange people and events as only byproducts of a fucked up place.

Welcome to Tucson.   

Actually, I think it's really more that Boston is and was a collection point for people who couldn't get along in their own countries...IE, weirdos.

Also, Irish people everywhere.

In Tucson?

But Tucson has...sun. Lots and lots of SUN.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The theme of the creepy thing about New England being the land itself I'm just now picking up from Twid and LMNO's recent writings.  All the strange people and events as only byproducts of a fucked up place.

Welcome to Tucson.   

Actually, I think it's really more that Boston is and was a collection point for people who couldn't get along in their own countries...IE, weirdos.

Also, Irish people everywhere.

In Tucson?

But Tucson has...sun. Lots and lots of SUN.

Bolded for clarification.

And we have no Irish or Italian people here.  The heat ignites their blood/alcohol stream and their spray tan, respectively.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

The theme of the creepy thing about New England being the land itself I'm just now picking up from Twid and LMNO's recent writings.  All the strange people and events as only byproducts of a fucked up place.

Welcome to Tucson.   

Actually, I think it's really more that Boston is and was a collection point for people who couldn't get along in their own countries...IE, weirdos.

Also, Irish people everywhere.

In Tucson?

But Tucson has...sun. Lots and lots of SUN.

Bolded for clarification.

And we have no Irish or Italian people here.  The heat ignites their blood/alcohol stream and their spray tan, respectively.

Ah, gotcha.

Yes, they have a bronze statue of starving potato famine victims in downtown Boston somewhere.

And pubs. Lots of pubs.

Texas is sorely lacking in Italians, but we do have mongrelized Irish. They're forgotten how to make corned beef and cabbage, drink green beer and pinch people on St. Paddy's, and so have forgotten their Irishness.

This place is predominantly English/German/Bohunk though. EVERYBODY POLKAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

Tucson, from what I've seen, also seems to have near-unidentifiable caucasians.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Yes, they have a bronze statue of starving potato famine victims in downtown Boston somewhere.

Well, saves on bronze, right?

Tucson, from what I've seen, also seems to have near-unidentifiable caucasians.

All the ethnicity bleeds out of you when you come here.  There is no Irish, no German, no Black, no Hispanic.  There is only Tucson.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yes, they have a bronze statue of starving potato famine victims in downtown Boston somewhere.

Well, saves on bronze, right?

Yep. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/imfedore/363157220/

note: as of 2001, all public toilets on this block cost fifty cents IIRC

Tucson, from what I've seen, also seems to have near-unidentifiable caucasians.

All the ethnicity bleeds out of you when you come here.  There is no Irish, no German, no Black, no Hispanic.  There is only Tucson.

It's like Lennon's "Imagine" on bad acid. 
There's still Navajos. But they fight tooth and nail hanging on to that.

[Suu]

We have a Potato Famine monument too.

http://www.rifaminememorial.com/

Providence doesn't get half as much credit for shit that happened, here. One of my next tales will be about the revolution after I finish Roger Williams' history.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

We have a Potato Famine monument too.

For all the Italians that died?   

[Suu]

We have a Potato Famine monument too.

For all the Italians that died?   

49% of Providence is of Irish decent, 47% is Italian, and the rest are like Portuguese and Armenian. We don't know where the Irish are hiding, but we assume NOT on Federal Hill, no matter what the fucking show "Brotherhood" told you.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

49% of Providence is of Irish decent,

The Irish are not decent.

[Suu]

49% of Providence is of Irish decent,

The Irish are not decent.

Troof.

and...touche. 

[LMNO]

When you think of Boston in the 1700s, the first thing that comes to mind is the revolution, naturally.  But two other events happened in that century, as well.

Around 1750, the farms surrounding Boston started recording an unexpected drop in dairy and egg production, as well as a spike in malformed livestock births.  The atmosphere in and around the city was palpable, and the weather patterns for the next several years were unusual and unpredictable, even for New England.

Henry Price had been able to establish St John's Lodge for Freemasons in 1733, and rose to prominence as the "Provincial Grand Master", due to both his charitable works, as well as certain clandestine and occult reports sent to the Grand Lodge of England regarding the Pond, and his attempts to quell and contain what he and Chapman found there.

Unfortunately, he may very well have done too good a job, as in 1755, the New England area suffered a massive earthquake.  Studies of the historical record estimate it was between a 6.0 and a 6.3, the largest quake the area has ever seen, or seen since.  The destruction to the city was massive, as the landfill in the harbor was still quite unsteady at the time.  Chimneys toppled, churches collapsed, and St John's Lodge was all but wiped from the face of the earth, some accounts going so far as to report that it imploded.  Other reports, reflected in later woodcuts and newspaper illustrations, show strange shapes and shadows in the sky as the buildings fell.

Outside the city, the small cottages and other buildings remained upright, but many stone fences and border walls fell, scattering their stones across fields and gardens, some of which were collected by the citizenry for their unusual shapes and characteristics, not often found in the slate and conglomerate local to the area.  The damage was particularly severe what is now the Jamaica Plain neighborhood, located – you guessed it – in the area surrounding the Pond.  Minutes from subsequent Lodge meetings indicate an anxious concern and a concerted effort to rebuilding these walls.  However, as Price was injured in the earthquake, he was not able to join the surveyor's team as it canvassed the countryside, straightening and leveling the intricate and twisting pathways.

In the wake of the earthquake, religious fervor in the area blossomed.  Not only in revivals and church attendance, but various books and pamphlets were produced, such as  Thomas Prince's Earthquakes: the Works of God and Tokens of his Just Displeasure, and John Newland's Coming of Thee Beast Among Us: Signs and Portents.  Pastors urged their congregations to give up on superstitions, saying that God was punishing them due to their superstitions and sinful behavior.  In 1760, at least a dozen Protestant churches gathered in Boston Common, where hundreds of good luck charms and talismans, previously considered harmless, were destroyed during the feast of St Patrick on March 17.

On March 20, 349 buildings were destroyed and thousands of people were killed when a fire ripped through the city.  Very few writings survive, but those that exist all use common words and phrases, such as "wrath", and "unholy flames", and describe how many of the citizens suffered from hallucinations brought on by toxic landfill, seeing visions of "devils" and "demonic creatures."  The following day saw a doubling of crews tasked with rebuilding the walls and fences in and around Jamaica Plain.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

This is the kind of awesomeness that, if it was a book, I'd read nonstop and not sleep until I finished.

[LMNO]

Thanks!  I'm learning quite a bit about the city, myself.  I'm actually researching this shit!