Category Archives: U-s-presidents

Sold for a song

“You know, there is a shortage of beautiful, old theaters left in this country and this is one of them…” – Daryl Hall

At some point during the first decade of 2000s, I went to see Hall and Oates at the Orpheum Theater in Boston. They were on a tour to promote a..

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Curiouser and curiouser

The interior side of the Hancock Mansion’s front door, preserved in the Massachusetts Old Statehouse. This is the side that Cato Hancock would have known well.

I truly went down a rabbit hole recently, and all the credit goes to NEHGS’s Chief Genealogist, David..

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Presidents' Day reflections

I am not sure where my fascination with the personal histories of American presidents began. Maybe it was the long road trip I took with my family in 2003 when we listened to David McCullough’s John Adams on audio book or my earliest visits to Washington, D.C. and..

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The last Grand Sachem

General Grant with some of his officers, Ely Parker among them. From The Photographic History of the Civil War in Ten Volumes

Some years ago I was looking through a set of books that had been given to me by my wife’s grandmother. They were pictorial and history..

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'The first of their fellow citizens'

The life and legacy of Alexander Hamilton, America’s first Treasury Secretary, has penetrated the wider public consciousness ever since the release of Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical.

The musical touts Hamilton’s connection to his adopted home, New..

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Back to the sea

President Warren G. Harding’s funeral train passing through Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on the way to his state funeral in Washington, D.C., August 1923.

When writing my last post, I missed an event that Granduncle Fred (Ross W. McCurdy, that’s for you!) mentioned briefly..

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James O'Neil revisited

Note that Patrick J. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's grandfather, appears two lines above James O'Neil's entry; both men are listed at 23 Border Street.

Over a year ago I wrote a Vita Brevis post about my great-great-great-grandfather, James O’Neil, who successfully sued..

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ICYMI: Lost generations

John Henry Beeckman’s nephew, Robert Livingston Beeckman (1866-1935). Photo by George Grantham Bain

[Author's note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 9 September 2016.]

One of the trends in my ancestry is the curious one whereby, when given the..

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Artistic imposture

Belva Kibler and Dorothy Dow by Carl Van Vechten.

The recent acquisition of a 1947 photograph of the mezzo-soprano Dorothy Dow playing Susan B. Anthony[1] made me think about how historic figures have been represented on stage and in film – and, thus, in the still..

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'The glory and the gloom'

Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236
While the obsequies associated with President Lincoln’s death and burial continued into May 1865, Regina Shober Gray’s [1] thoughts turned to other subjects as well. It would also seem that..Continue reading