Creative History

  It is April 22, 1721 and the small passenger ship HMS Seahorse arrives from London in Boston harbor. Onboard is a sailor suffering from fever and uncontrollable vomiting.  He is hot to the touch and already his skin has begun to break out in a painful blistering rash.  This sailor is suffering from the dreaded disease of smallpox--the scourge of Colonial America--known to scientists as the virus Variola Major but simply called the Pox by everyone else. Immediately, authorities in Boston ordered the sailor quarantined on Spectacle Island, a small 105 acre speck of land in the harbor that is located four miles from Boston’s city center.  On his deathbed, convulsing in and out of consciousness, this lone sailor is left on the island to die, but already it is too late. The Pox has spread to others onboard the Seahorse, both to passengers from England and to local crew members who take the virus back with them to their residences in Boston.   Before al...

    Door to door salesman Edward Payson Weston is twenty-two years old.  He has been scraping out a living in and around Boston, Massachusetts, walking from house to house attempting to sell books--sometimes Bibles and religious tracts; sometimes racy semi-pornogrphic pamphlets and scandalous newspapers--whatever, as long as he can make a buck and sell something. Weston is also a gambling young man, immensely handsome, popular with the ladies and a bit of a dandy--he is often in debt and always behind on his bills. In late October of 1860, Edward Payson Weston, believes that Abraham Lincoln will lose the upcoming Presidential Election that November and, as always, he’s willing to bet on it. Weston and his friend George Eddy, an idealistic young man and a fervent abolitionist, are downing shots of whiskey at a Boston tavern when the subject of the upcoming election arises, as it always does in the weeks and months leading up to the War Between the States. Ed dy i...

  Known for its narrow lanes and small streets with an enormous castle erected in the early 13th century by England’s King John overlooking its Harbor the town of Carlingford, County Louth, Ireland still retains a medieval feel.   Not only is Carlingford home to King John’s Castle but the town also possesses part of its original town wall from the early Middle Ages called, “The Tholsel”.  The Tholsel is a structure that  may be one of history’s last surviving examples of an intact medieval jail.  Carlingford is also home to a fortified 16th century townhouse called  the Carlingford Mint which is now considered a National Irish Monument and stands as a testament to Ireland’s long, troubled and enduring history. The Carlingford Mint Carlingford is a coastal town.  Its name derives from an Old Norse word that literally translates to, “narrow sea-inlet of the hag” and today a majority of the town’s residents are employed in seafaring occupations...