Find a Grave image for Ebenezer Paddock (see Note 5 below).
Because of the dedication of our many volunteers, we at the New England Historic Genealogy Society have the opportunity to continually expand the range of databases we provide to family researchers. Recently we have made a lot of progress indexing cemetery transcriptions from NEHGS manuscripts, creating a database complete with accompanying images. You may wonder why we are bothering to index these old manuscripts when there are so many other sources of cemetery information widely available on the Internet today. Continue reading Ancient burying grounds→
It might seem odd, but the 1860 election – pitting Congressman Abraham Lincoln and Senator Hannibal Hamlin against Senator John Cabell Breckenridge and Senator Joseph Lane – did not particularly transfix the nation – at least if one goes by Regina Shober Gray’s[1] diary.
The genealogy column in the Boston Evening Transcript newspaper has been one of the more heavily used resources at the NEHGS Library for the past century or more. The paper was published, under a few different titles, from 1830 to 1941. From 1906 through 1941, it featured a genealogy column in which readers would submit and respond to queries. During most of its run, the column appeared twice a week. According to an editors’ note which appeared in many issues, the newspaper was almost overwhelmed with submissions and had a backlog waiting to be published. The editors also claimed that they had “correspondents in every corner of the country.” By the time it ceased publication, the column had covered an estimated two million names. Continue reading Boston Transcript column now online→
[Author’s note: This series, on Mrs. Gray’s reading habits, beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236Late in January 1863, Major General George B. McClellan made a visit to Boston following an invitation from a group of civic leaders, one that included Regina Shober Gray’s[1] brother-in-law William Gray (1810–1892).
61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Thursday, 29 January 1863: Mc.Clellan and his wife[2] arrived yesterday p.m. Wm. Gray took Fanny [Gray][3] up to Worcester with the delegation… Of course they had a delightful chance to make acquaintance. Fanny is charmed with Mrs. Mc C. – she & her father rode up to the Tremont House [Hotel] with them, and Mrs. McC. gave Fanny the bouquet which was presented to her at Worcester.
Tomorrow the great dinner & reception at W.G.’s comes off. It will be a regular jam I am afraid. The party at Lizzie Abbott’s last night went off very pleasantly. It was very pretty to look at, and Rebecca [Wainwright][4] and I, who felt quite elderly among the rest, quite enjoyed the looking. Continue reading ‘A good work for the society’→
[Author’s note: This series, on Mrs. Gray’s reading habits, beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236This selection of Regina Shober Gray’s[1] reading includes current novels (John Brent and The Earl’s Heirs) as well as a response to a controversial proclamation by the Military Governor in New Orleans. Mrs. Gray tells a story on herself in daring to read from the Bible in front of a visiting minister.
61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Wednesday, 12 February 1862: Cutting out Frank [Gray]’s[2] shirts this morning. Sat up till’ 1 o’clock last night to read John Brent[3] – began it at 10½ after … Fred [Gray][4] went home, and F. C. had finished his acct. of the “Negro Minstrels”[5] he and Lawrence Sprague[6] went to hear and see. It is a brilliant book…
Sunday, 16 March 1862: A continuation of yest’ys storm; hail, rain, sleet, and a raw north east gale. Tomorrow Miss Choate[7] comes to work for the boys – a busy week we shall have. I have found time this past week to run through Bulwer’s “Strange Story”[8] and “The Earl’s Heirs,”[9] both quite entrainant in their way. Continue reading ‘Privileges of sex and rank’→
[Author’s note: This series, on Mrs. Gray’s reading habits, beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236Letters as well as books constituted Regina Shober Gray’s[1] reading. First, though, a note on the configuration of the Grays’ house at the corner of Bowdoin Street and Beacon Hill Place. This group of buildings was later taken down to make way for the East Wing of the Massachusetts State House, but in 1861 the Grays faced the William Fletcher Welds at 65 Bowdoin Street across Beacon Hill Place, which was itself a continuation of Mount Vernon Street. (In those days, Mount Vernon Street started at the corner of Beacon Street and turned 90° at the State House, and Beacon Hill Place, to continue down Beacon Hill.) Confusingly, the Grays lived at 1 Beacon Hill Place, too; Joseph B. Carter was their neighbor at 3 Beacon Hill Place:
61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Saturday, 16 November 1861: Wrote as polite a note as I knew how to our neighbour Mrs. Weld[2] this week au sujetde their end window on Beacon Hill [Place], which they have no right to keep open, and which they do, to my great inconvenience. Continue reading ‘How can I make a call there?’→
[Author’s note: This series, on Mrs. Gray’s reading habits, beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236Of particular interest in these entries is Regina Shober Gray’s[1] depiction of being photographed in September 1861: “I hope [the resulting pictures] will be reasonably good, but one’s vanity does penance always in these cartes de visite likenesses. Gentlemen look well in them, but they almost always give a harsh, stern unnatural look to a woman’s face.”[2] Mrs. Gray noted that her own standards were relatively flexible, reporting that her friend Rebecca Wainwright[3] “does not think my photographs very successful – but I feel that I ought to be satisfied with them – they are quite as good of me as other peoples are of them. Hard and rigid looking.”[4]
61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Thursday, 5 September 1861: Frank [Gray]’s[5] birth-day – 15 years old. I can hardly realize it. He had presents from myself, “Barrington’s Heraldry,”[6] from Aunt Liz [Shober][7] a dollar, from Mary C. [Gray][8] 3 engraved Shirt Studs. His eyes are decidedly better. Continue reading ‘One’s vanity does penance always’→
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236[Author’s note: This series, on Mrs. Gray’s reading habits, beganhere.]
By the winter of 1861, an American civil war loomed. Regina Shober Gray[1] – a native of Pennsylvania with Southern connections[2] – was disposed to some sort of emancipation for the South’s slaves, with due respect for slave-owners’ existing property rights, but her views (and emphases) would change over the course of the next four years.
61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Sunday, 3 March 1861: A summer’s day – absolutely oppressive. Sorry to hear from Aunt Sarah Bradlee[3] how very sick Henry [Bradlee][4] seems. There was some talk of sending him on a long voyage, but he is too ill for that. Continue reading ‘A free citizen’→
[Author’s note: This series, on Mrs. Gray’s reading habits, beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236These entries, from 1860–61, focus less on Regina Shober Gray’s[1] reading than on the successive deaths from diphtheria of members of the Gardner and Adams families during the winter of 1861; they also include a walk-on part for future Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935), who must have narrowly escaped being infected.
61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Sunday, 23 December 1860: The dinner party at Mr. Adams’[2] was a very pleasant one. Mr. & Mrs. Ed. Blake,[3] Miss Jones,[4] and ourselves. It was disagreeably startled by a grand crash of crockery! the falling of a moveable shelf, which was no doubt too heavily piled. It must have made sad havoc in that beautiful dinner set of French china. Of course nobody stopped talking or took any notice, though there [was] noise enough for the crack of doom. I don’t know if I could have taken it so quietly as Emily [Adams][5] and her father did – I am very sure my husband could not. Continue reading ‘Of course nobody stopped talking’→
[Author’s note: This series, on Mrs. Gray’s reading habits, beganhere.]
Regina Shober Gray by [Edward L.] Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236Regina Shober Gray’s[1] diary shows her as part of a wide network of families: in the following entries, from summer and fall in 1860, we see her entertaining her sister in Manchester; receiving visits from her husband’s uncle and her own stepmother in Boston; sending her son off to visit his uncle and aunt in Brookline; and whiling away a day in some of Boston’s many bookstores.
Manchester, Massachusetts, Saturday, 11 August 1860: A rainy day – we all sat in Mrs. Gordon’s[2] rooms till after luncheon. Then Lizzie [Shober][3] and I read aloud in my room – “Leslie’s Autobiography,”[4] which we found very pleasant reading. We had neither bath[e] nor walk to-day. Dr. Gordon came down this p.m. bringing letters from Rebecca [Wainwright],[5] Dr. G., & Mary S[hober].[6] Morris [Gray][7] went off fishing with the girls, and caught a rock-cod, which he pulled up bravely to the level wharf, and then in his tremulous excitement let slip back into the water!! Continue reading ‘More than worth the money’→
