Launching Today: FNE’s Guide to Lowell’s Neighborhoods

October 23, 2020.Reading time 1 minute.

Today, we’re publishing our new guide to the history of Lowell’s neighborhoods! Get the link here.

The Real Ghost Story Behind Lowell Cemetery’s Witch Bonney

October 18, 2020.Reading time 15 minutes.

There’s a witch in Lowell Cemetery, ‘they’ say. As the legend goes, when the bodice of her dress slips below her waist, her ghost roams the streets of Lowell.

View post to subscribe to site newsletter.

1918: Spanish Influenza invades Massachusetts

October 5, 2020.Reading time 11 minutes.

You could’ve easily missed the signs that Spanish Flu was coming back for a second wave at the end of summer in 1918. In mid-August, New York City had suffered a scare when a Norwegian steamship arrived in port with many suspected cases. Even before the city’s health department confirmed any cases of Spanish Flu […]

Harvard Brewery – A Lowell Tale of Fires, Wartime Enemy Sympathizers, and Prohibition Raids

January 21, 2020.Reading time 8 minutes.

That Harvard Brewery building stares at you, like it has a secret. Because it does. When you pull in to park at Lowell’s Target, those twelve little windows peer forward, each covered with corrugated sheet metal that’s been painted the color of pistachio ice cream. (Why?) That Harvard Brewery building has ghosts like anything that […]

Another First in Lowell History: The Soda Fountain

April 20, 2019.Reading time 3 minutes.

Whether you call it pop, tonic, soda, or just plain Coke, the soda fountain owes its modern form to one Gustavus D. Dows who ran a drugstore with his brother at 213 Central Street in Lowell in the mid 1850s.

Azores Genealogy – 6 Easy Steps to Extend Your Family Tree Back to the 1600s

September 8, 2018.Reading time 11 minutes.

Maybe you’ve always known that your ancestors came from the Azores. Maybe you’ve just found out. Here are 6 Steps to Get Your Family Tree Back to the 1600s.

Lowell Catholic & The History of 530 Stevens Street

June 3, 2018.Reading time 11 minutes.

Have you ever stepped inside 530 Stevens Street? Within those walls that now house Lowell Catholic, there’s history.

Can DNA Genealogy break through Family Tree Mysteries?

March 13, 2018.Reading time 15 minutes.

Can DNA genealogy solve the family tree mysteries of your brick wall ancestors? Can a DNA test tell you where your 19th-century second-great-grandfather was born in Ireland, or the names of his parents? Maybe.

Old Group Photos: Someone Else’s Ancestors

February 12, 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

Maybe you love to stare into the faces of those captured in long-ago photographs and search for a lost image of a long-dead ancestor. Maybe you just like old photos. In our family, we’ve had an old group photograph from 1924 for … well, since it was taken in 1924. The story behind the photograph […]

Lowell’s Early History, Hidden in Plain Sight.

September 2, 2017.Reading time 8 minutes.

Where would you find the site of Lowell’s first kindergarten, first day nursery, first night school, and first foray into community education? Where would find one of the city’s few buildings remaining from the 1820s? Would you go to one of the city’s downtown parking garages? Probably not, but that’s just where you’d see all […]