Ryan W. Owen, Writer and Photographer
Few people living today remember the 1920s – let alone the specifics of travel during the era. Luckily, New England‘s commitment to preserving its history makes it relatively easy to envision the region as it appeared in decades past. This becomes obvious during any ride through many of its cities. The YouTube video below shows the […]
Read MoreFamiliar sites greet you as you step from the twenty-minute electric car ride on the Lowell & Suburban into the Billerica Center of 1896. Like today, Town Common dominates the view, its Soldiers’ Monument and flagpole just now disappearing behind the late spring foliage. The Unitarian church and Town Hall (now the Library) bookend today’s […]
Read MoreRogers Street,today, is one of Lowell‘s main gateways into the city, providing access from Tewksbury, the city’s southern neighbor. Known by many outside Lowell simply as Route 38, the road has a long past that is deeply connected to Lowell’s history, and to the history of its Belvidere neighborhood especially. Rogers Street gets its name […]
Read MoreIn May 1904, ten yards beyond a barbed wire fence in the East Billerica woods, James Marnell stumbled over a small mound of dirt, uncovering an ornate silver serving tray. “Sanborn’s treasure!” Marnell, a railroad worker, excitedly announced. Townspeople knew Sanborn’s treasure to contain silverware, jewelry, and furs stolen the year before from Billerica’s plush […]
Read MoreLike today, the summer months of a century ago were no stranger to hot spells in the Greater Lowell area either. One particular hot spell, during the middle of July in 1910, was said to be ‘hotter than the hobs of Hades’, as it was reported by Oscar, a popular downtown Lowell personality who worked at […]
Read MoreIs Massachusetts getting warmer? Wetter? There has been a lot of talk about global warming, climate change, its causes and its implications for our future. But, how has climate change affected Massachusetts? To really identify climate change, one needs a consistent set of data, taken reliably, continuously, and consistently at the same location over a […]
Read MoreIf you were to travel Bedford’s North Road in, say, 1908, you would see, as you progress into the town’s northern reaches, a road named Sweetwater Avenue. Sweetwater Avenue led to Dr. William Richardson Hayden’s Sweetwater Hotel, built in 1897 near Fawn Lake, itself well-known for its ‘restorative properties’ that were said to cure many […]
Read MoreHigh school entrance exams during the Civil War era were hard, really. For arithmetic, 14-year-olds in Lowell, Massachusetts were asked to calculate the diameter of a cannon ball weighing 250 pounds, if the diameter of a 128-pound ball was 8 inches. In grammar, they were asked for the plurals of Mr. Smith, Miss Smith, and […]
Read MoreIt wasn’t Cornhill Street, Cornhill Road, Cornhill Avenue, or even the Cornhill; instead, it was just Cornhill, and in its day, knowing this was just one more way that those in the know had to distinguish locals from those visiting Boston as tourists. In its history, Boston has had two roads called Cornhill. The first, […]
Read MoreGenealogists spend a lot of time immersed in old records – especially really old ones, from decades and centuries past. These records yield valuable information in building family trees. And, as any genealogist will tell you, every tree ends at its treetop, with the names of its brick wall ancestors, those whose parentage is unknown and […]
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Forgotten New England 