Creative History

  Located along Massachusetts’ North Shore, on the banks of Cape Ann is the historic port city of Gloucester. The harbor at Gloucester, Massachusetts was first mapped in 1609 by French explorer Samuel de Champlain and the town itself was first incorporated as a permanent English settlement by the Massachusetts Bay Colony less than forty years later in 1642. Gloucester is the oldest continuously operating fishing port in the United States, and for well over 400 years the Cape Ann area of Massachusetts’ North Shore has had a mysterious and haunted history. In 1638 English traveler and writer John Josselyn while on a trip to the New World wrote of the local English settlers and indigenous peoples who lived along Massachusetts North Shore that, “They told me of a sea serpent, or snake, that lay coiled up like a cable upon a rock at Cape Ann.  A boat passed by with two English on board and two Indians.  They would have shot the serpent, but the Indians dissuaded them say...

  “And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward Heaven that there may be darkness over the land…even darkness which may be felt.”  EXODUS 10: 21 KJV “The sun gave forth its light without any brightness, like the moon, during the whole year.” So goes the account, not from the Plagues of Egypt as recounted in the Biblical Book of Exodus , but from the personal correspondence of the famed 6th century Byzantine Historian Procopius. Procopius was the right hand man to the Emperor Justinian.  He was the principal historian for all of Byzantium in the early middle ages, known for his erudition, learning and literary style.  Today, Procopius is most famous for his work entitled History of the Wars which is a voluminous series of histories that deals primarily with Byzantium’s struggles against the neighboring Sassanid Persian Empire. When Procopius gave his account of the darkened sun he was writing specifically about the year 536 A.D.  The year 5...

  A large crowd of nearly 1,000 people gathered inside Washington D.C.’s glamorous and elegant Knickerbocker Theater on Saturday night January 28, 1922. It is the city’s largest movie theater, located on the corner of 18th Street and Columbia Road right in the heart of our nation’s capital.   The Knickerbocker Theater in addition to showing the silent film era’s latest releases, is also often used as a concert hall and public convention center.  It is renowned across the east coast for its elegant ballrooms and ornate art deco appearance. Built only five years earlier in 1917, the Knickerbocker Theater, with its flat topped roof design is considered to be the epitome of modern architectural style for movie houses the world over. On this night, the crowd comes to see an on screen adaptation of the hit Broadway comedy Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford .  Saturday night at the Knickerbocker Theater is comedy night and the crowd for Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford is loud an...

  It’s the year 1903, and if you’re a beer drinker and a homebody, well then, you have a problem. Unless you’re wealthy or lucky enough to live in a big city with a large brewery in 1903, if you want to enjoy a cold one at home then you better be carrying a bucket. In the 19th century most beer drinkers are still forced to either consume their beer on site in dark, dank, smoke-filled taverns and saloons--something not exactly suitable for ladies or well-to-do gentlemen--or they need to bring a wooden bucket or metal pail to their local bar and take their beers “to go” if you will. A bucket full of beer is never a bad thing (in my humble opinion) as long as you can drink it quickly, but it isn’t exactly the most convenient system for consuming a cold one on your couch after a long day’s work at the factory, shop, office or wherever else, either. But, oddly enough, it isn’t as if bottled beer hadn't been invented yet at the turn of the twentieth century. In fact, bottled beer...