We Love a Parade!

Join us on June 28 for a parade commemorating the important role Newburyport played in the Road to Revolution, and explore how this parade will employ the services of a key public servant in centuries past - the Town Crier!

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We Love a Parade!

Newburyport's Road to Revolution Parade on June 28 brings back a Newburyport Tradition - the Town Crier!

Enoch C. Flanders in action, from a postcard in the collection of the Museum of Old Newbury.



Well, friends, it has been a wild couple of months. Since we began our MA250 programming in February, 1944 of you have come to lectures on tea protests, Rev War weapons, fortifying the harbor, Newburyport’s Black Citizens on the eve of Revolution, and more. We had a Revolutionary War fashion parade, frightened the neighbors of St. Paul's Episcopal Church by firing muskets in the evening, and wandered through revolutionary gardens and burying grounds.

It has been an absolute (no pun intended) blast.

Members of the Acton Minutemen and His Majesty's 10th Regiment of Foot perform a musket drill in the St. Paul's Churchyard on May 29.



Two events are happening next week, and they are biggies. Lucky for us, they are both in partnership with the Custom House Maritime Museum, who has done much of the heavy lifting. We are so excited to celebrate the close of this phase of the Road to Revolution with the CHMM Grand Exhibition opening on Thursday, June 26, at 5:30 p.m.

And then, on Saturday, June 28, at 10 a.m., we are having a parade!

First, let me say that I love a parade - not quite as much as my friend Sarah, who has a beautiful sign that she displays proudly that says as much.

But still - the older I get the more I love a parade, ironically. I have come to fully embrace the joy of simply walking (or riding) down a street with your friends and neighbors celebrating or commemorating...something. So as we thought of what we could do to commemorate Newburyport's important role in the earliest phase of the American Revolution, what better way than this? To make the most out of the occasion, and celebrate just a few of the numerous ways that this community is tied to that important history, we have enlisted the assistance of that most important public servant from centuries past - the Town Crier.

Top: Enoch C. Flanders taking a break, from a postcard in the collection of the Museum of Old Newbury. 

Bottom: A rare image of Enoch Flanders, with bell, crossing State Street, c. 1895. Collection of Boston Public Library.

In a world before any form of electronic communication, when a community-wide announcement needed to be made, it could be distributed in print, which could be expensive and time consuming, or handed off to the Town Crier, whose bell and booming voice carried the message almost instantaneously.

Newbury(port) had a town crier as early as 1666, when John Cross was given 2 pence for crying in place and 6 pence for crying "up and down the streets".

The town crier's services seem to have been paid by a combination of public and private funds. In cases of found property, the finder was required to inform the crier, who would then attempt to find the owner. Public meetings, impending storms, emergencies, election results were all cried on the public dime. Events, sales, and other commercial announcements were paid for by the business, and there were likely gratuities offered to the crier when property was returned.

According to Currier's History of Newburyport, issues arose as advertising increased, and unlicensed criers were wandering around Boston making a nuisance of themselves. From then on, all criers were required to be licensed by the town.

Despite this requirement, it is not clear how Newburyport's criers were selected, though many of them seem to have been unsuited for other kinds of more common employment. William Pike Lunt, who had been a drummer during the Revolutionary War, was extremely short, while James Foote was blind. The last crier in Newburyport, Enoch Flanders, pictured above, had a pronounced limp, the result of a stroke. He augmented his earnings as town crier with work as a bootblack as he was unable to work as a ship's caulker, his earlier profession. Flanders, known in town as Squerry, died in 1914, and was the last crier in the country at the time of his demise. His life is worthy of a story of its own, but we will save that for another time.

Though Ghlee Woodworth's Town Crier outfit will be a surprise, AI has provided me with a couple of possibilities. Of course, you will see that in the bottom image, she appears to have lost a finger or two.

On June 28, Ghlee will be provided with a megaphone and a bell, and she is working on her list of Revolutionary War call-outs for the parade. For my part, I will be reprising my exhausting role as the occupant of the world's most fabulous bed - a redesigned, souped-up version of our Yankee Homecoming Bed Race entry from last year.

I have the easiest job here - yours truly will be back in a new iteration of this bed on June 28.

As we prepare for this parade, whose focus is the commemoration of a very literal Revolution, I encourage you to also think about revolutions in a broader sense, past, present, and future. After all, the goal of the MA250 program is to encourage us to embark "on a journey through the last 250 years and the many revolutions yet to come."

I will leave you with two of my favorite parade images from our collection. One is of the Towle Silver Company's welcome home float for soldiers returning from World War II, featuring women dressed as brides representing silverware patterns. There is so much captured in that image - assumptions about the role of women, the allure of pre-packaged post-war domesticity, the industrial strength of Newburyport. And how did they keep all those dresses white while rolling down the dirty streets of Newburyport?

The other is, at first glance, a stagecoach at the corner of State Street and Threadneedle Alley (present-day Bar 25). A closer look reveals that the passenger on the coach is dressed for the Horribles parade, a satirical and theatrical event that took place in Newburyport and lampooned politicians and current events in the city.

Parades in Newburyport have run the gamut from military commemorations to counter-culture performance art, and everything in between. So come out with your signs, your masks, your flags and your full creative selves. We will see you at the parade!  

Something Is Always Cooking...or Chilling...

Lemon Milk Sherbet

*Pro tips - Juice the lemons and use the rind to give the sherbet an extra kick. Add the lemon juice to the milk slowly while stirring or the milk will curdle.

Two weeks ago, we were trusted with an ordinary, extraordinary box of recipes that had belonged to Eleanor Johnson (Little) Baker. Eleanor was a fixture at the Museum of Old Newbury, cataloguing collections, writing papers, and volunteering for everything from tea parties to finance committees. She was a Red Cross volunteer in World War I, a Smith College graduate, and in every photo I have seen of her, she has a bit of a mischievous sparkle in her eye. I think we would have been friends, and indeed, I count several of her grandchildren and other relatives among my close friends. And so, since it will be so blazing hot in the upcoming week, here's an easy, cool, and delicious recipe from the mid-century fabulousness of my honorary great-aunt (and actual 5th cousin) Eleanor. Enjoy!

-Bethany Groff Dorau

Puzzle Me This...

Click the image to do the puzzle

Another view of the musket drill that followed Newburyport's Road to Revolution, Part V - Powder and Shot with Joel Bohy on May 29. Special thanks to Steve Crosby (here in blue) for being such a staunch supporter of the museum!