Lowell Deeds

On the day that the American League Championship Series is about to start, some might argue that the Boston Red Sox have been the most successful major league team of the Twenty-First Century. As evidence, here’s a review of the past five years:

2003 – The “Cowboy Up” season. The Sox came back from a 0-2 deficit to defeat the Oakland A’s in the ALDS. Tied 3 games to 3 against the Yankees in the ALCS, Pedro Martinez had a 5-2 lead after 7 innings when manager Grady Little inexplicably sent his starter back to pitch the 9th. The Yankees tied the game and eventually won it with an Aaron Boone home run off of Tim Wakefield. Here’s the opening day lineup for the Sox:

Johnny Damon – CF
Todd Walker – 2B
Nomar Garciaparra – SS
Manny Ramirez – LF
Kevin Millar – 1B
Shea Hillenbrand – 3B
Jeremy Giambi – DH
Trot Nixon – RF
Jason Varitek – C
Pedro Martinez – P

2004 – The “Idiots” added Curt Schilling to the starting rotation and Keith Foulke as closer. On July 31, they traded Nomar to the Cubs, receiving shortstop Orlando Cabrera and first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz in return. They also picked up speedy reserve outfielder Dave Roberts from the Giants. After winning the Wild Card, the Sox swept the Angels in the ALDS but quickly went down 3-0 to the Yankees. Ahead 4-3 in the ninth inning of game four, Yankee closer Mariano Rivera walked Kevin Millar. Pinch runner Roberts stole second and scored the tying run on a Varitek single. David Ortiz won the game with a 2-run home run in the 12th. The Sox won game five in 14 innings on an Ortiz rbi single. Game six was Schilling’s “Bloody Sock” win that included a 3-run home run by second baseman Mark Bellhorn. In game seven, Derek Lowe threw a 1 hit, 1 run masterpiece. The Sox swept the Cardinals in the World Series. The 2004 Opening Day lineup:

Johnny Damon – CF
Bill Mueller – 3B
Manny Ramirez – LF
David Ortiz – DH
Kevin Millar – 1B
Gabe Kapler – RF
Jason Varitek – C
Mark Bellhorn – 2B
Pokey Reese – SS
Pedro Martinez – P

2005 – The Red Sox made it into the ALDS but were swept in three games by the White Sox. The Opening Day lineup:

Johnny Damon – CF
Edgar Renteria – SS
Manny Ramirez – LF
David Ortiz – DH
Kevin Millar – 1B
Jason Varitek – C
Jay Payton – RF
Bill Mueller – 3B
Mark Bellhorn – 2B
David Wells – P

2006 – This team finished third in the AL East and did not make the playoffs. The Opening Day lineup:

Coco Crisp – CF
Mark Loretta – 2B
David Ortiz – DH
Manny Ramirez – LF
Trot Nixon – RF
Jason Varitek – C
Mike Lowell – 3B
Kevin Youkilis – 1B
Alex Gonzalez – SS
Curt Schilling – P

2007 – The Sox swept the Angels in the ALDS and beat the Indians in the ALCS after falling behind 3 games to 1. They swept the Rockies in the World Series. The Opening Day lineup:

Julio Lugo – SS
Kevin Youkilis – 1B
David Ortiz – DH
Manny Ramirez – LF
J D Drew – RF
Mike Lowell – 3B
Jason Varitek – C
Coco Crisp – CF
Dustin Pedroia – 2B
Curt Schilling – P

2008 – to be continued.

It’s hard to believe that the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred seven years ago today. It was a beautiful, sunny, late summer day, just like today. Using some notes that I scribbled down the next day, here’s what I remember. At about 9:00 a.m., someone told me that a plane had flew into the World Trade Center. My initial reaction was that it had to be an accident. I quickly got to a TV and actually saw the second plane strike the second tower, live on TV. Although the second plane caused me to dispense with the accident theory, I still assumed that it was a small, private plane such as a Lear jet. In what I can only describe as a failure of imagination, I was unable to consider the possibility that several commercial airliners had been hijacked and turned into flying bombs. That same failure of imagination occurred when the towers collapsed. Even though I saw it live on TV with the reporter saying what had just happened, I could not comprehend that the towers had actually collapsed – it must have just been the façade that fell. Soon enough I and everyone else realized the extent of the destruction although internet service was completely disrupted so it was hard to get much information. Shortly after noon, the governor (Swift?) ordered all state buildings closed so we all went home and spent the rest of the day watching CNN.

One of the most frequent inquiries I receive from the email link on our website is from those interested in researching house histories. Unfortunately, the Registry of Deeds is more interested in who owns the land and not what is built upon it, so our records are of limited use in that area. Still, inferences can often be drawn. For example, if a lot was purchased for $1000 and then a year later was sold for $5000, you can reasonably conclude that something was built upon it. But to get more precise information about a house’s age and architectual lineage, outside reference sources are needed. Two useful books are “A Guide to Tracing the Genealogy of Your Home” by Sally Light and “Discovering the History of Your House and Your Neighborhood” by Betsy Green is another. The website About.com also has a useful section on house histories.

A new book is creating a buzz in the national media. In “Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails”, Tom Wheeler explains how Abraham Lincoln became and “early adopter” of his generation’s newest communications technology - the telegraph - and used it to help win the Civil War. The author’s website contains images of various telegrams sent by Lincoln to his generals as well as lessons about using email that the author learned by studying Lincoln. Long ago I became convinced that studying how new technology became integrated into everyday life in the past helps guide us through the rollout of new technologies in the future. This book makes a valuable contribution to this field.

On Saturday morning I appeared on the Warren Shaw show on radio station WCAP in Lowell to talk about historic deeds that were recorded here at the registry. I’ve now posted two of them on our website. The first is known as the “Wheelwrigth Grant” which is a 1629 deed for all the land “from the Piscataqua to the Merrimack.” It encompasses all of present day Southern New Hampshire and the portion of Massachusetts north of the Merrimack. The second deed is one from 1832 for property on Fenwick Street in Lowell. It specifically prohibits any Irish from occupying the property.

I often wonder what it was like for most people on October 29, 1929. Were our predecessors here at the registry of deeds sitting around talking about the lack of recording activity, the high volume of recording activity, the weather, the upcoming city election? Today’s one of the days I’m thinking about this. Will our successors 79 years from now be asking “I wonder what was going on at the registry of deeds on July 11, 2008, the day the world’s financial system imploded?” Of course I’m being overly dramatic, but nothing in the news today excites confidence in our economy, especially the news from minutes ago that shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two giant corporations that own or guarantee half of this nation’s $12 trillion in mortgages have already lost half their value today on Wall Street. And it’s only 11 a.m. Stay tuned.

This is our annual 4th of July quiz given every 3rd of July…see how well you do

1. Who made the first American Flag?
2. What is the official date of Flag Day?
3. Who wrote the words to the Star Spangled Banner? Extra Credit: What was the name of the fort he was in when he wrote it?
4. How many stars were on the first flag? Now many stripes?
5. Who is the author of the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident”? Extra Credit: In what document?
6. How many member are there in the US House of Representatives?
7. How many US presidents were Generals?
8. What was Paul Revere’s occupation?
9. Who shot Abraham Lincoln?
10. Who was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence?

See below for answers…

1) Betsy Ross 2) June 14 3) Francis Scot Key Extra Credit: Fort McHenry 4) 13/13 5) Thomas Jefferson Extra Credit: Declaration of Independence 6) 435 7) Seven-Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Grant, Hayes, Harrison, Eisenhower 8.) Silversmith 9) John Wilkes Booth 10) John Hancock

Next Tuesday, June 17, is Bunker Hill Day. There registry will be open for business as usual, but the day remains a holiday in Boston and many customers call and ask us if we will be open. Unlike Evacuation Day, the other county holiday that isn’t a holiday anymore, the general historical background of Bunker Hill Day is self-evident. (Evacuation Day - March 17 - commemorates the British evacuation of Boston in March 1776, not St Patrick’s Day). The Battle of Bunker Hill took place just eight weeks after the opening fights of the Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775 and June 17, 1775). When the British returned to Boston after their expedition to Concord, the thousands of colonial troops and militia that operation had attracted followed and stayed in Cambridge. On the evening of June 16, several thousand colonials advanced to and entrenched on Bunker and Breed’s Hills to the northeast of Boston, a move that threatened the city and the British forces located there. The British, led by General William Howe (no relation) landed on the Charlestown peninsula on the morning of the 17th, took half the day to get organized, and attacked the dug-in Americans three times, being continuosly repulsed with heavy casualties until the colonists ran out of ammunition and were overrun. The victory was costly for the British who suffered more than 1000 casualties (228 killed and 800 wounded). The real impact of Bunker Hill occurred months later when the news of the heavy casualties reached England. Many who saw Lexington and Concord as an unfortunate misunderstanding and who were working for reconcilliation, abandoned all hope of a peaceful and fast resolution of the conflict and resolved themselves to a long and costly fight.

I must admit I am disappointed and “a little” upset. Have you heard yet?…British archaeologists have discovered the secret of Stonehenge. You remember Stonehenge? That’s the unusal group of large stones arranged in a circle…the one Chevy Chase knocked down in National Lampoon’s European Vacation. This bundle of rocks has been around for about 5,000 years…and in my entire 56 years of life no one knew its purpose. Sure there has been all kinds of speculation: Stonehenge was an ancient Astronomical Observatory…Stonehenge was a religious complex…Stonehenge was one of the world’s first drive thru fast food restaurants, etc. The speculation went on and on…until this weekend when some really smart people discovered that Stonehenge served as a burial ground…”It is now clear that burials were a major component of Stonehenge in all its main stages, said Mike Parker Pearson an archaeologist at the University of Sheffield in England”. What!?!?!? So, it is like a fancy, dancy cemetery or something…Now, I call that disappointing. I was hoping it was something mystical, something exciting, that it held some hidden secret that when unlocked would benefit all mankind…if you multiple the square root of the weight of each stone times the cosine of the stone’s height then divide the total by pie you’ll have the formular for a clean, inexpensive, renewable energy source, capable of running an automobile and heating a home…but I always have been a dreamer.

Last Saturday Lowell Sun Chairman Kendall Wallace wrote and interesting column which contained a “by the way” reference to The Old Ladies Home on Fletcher Street in Lowell. Reading it reminded me of this story.

A couple of weeks ago a friend (here at the registry of deeds) who is involved with the Old Ladies Home asked me if I could find its Articles of Association. Apparently, the group is doing some historical research and was searching for the names of the original founders. The first question I askedwas, “is it really called The Old Ladies Home?”…well, “it used to be”, he said, “now it is referred to as the Merrimack River Valley House”. My friend’s request came late in the day and I knew I was looking for document at least 160 years old. Truthfully, deep down inside I groaned “It will take me forever to find something called The Old Ladies Home and even then, what are the chances I’ll find the Articles of Association. Using our new electronic indexes I pulled up the 1855-1880 Grantors looking for the name “Old Ladies Home”…you are not going to believe this, bam..right their on the very first page I viewed was a document recorded on May 4, 1867 indexed under the Old Ladies Home…I crossed my fingers! Could it be the Articles? Please, please, please…my eyes glanced over to “document type”…There it was, as plain as could be “the Articles of Association” for The Old Ladies Home in Lowell. You can just image my excitement..and it listed every founder, attested by the registry’s first register A.B. Wright… Let me quote directly from the document…“In witness whereof we have herunto set our hand this twentieth day of April A.D. 1862 (it wasn’t recorded until 1867) Dr Sarah H. Young, Mary A. Hedrick, Mrs J.L.Corliss, Sarah S. Corliss, Rachel H. Allyn M.D., John Nesmith, John A. Buttrick, John A. Knowles, C.P. Talbot, Wm Kelley, Harriet Nesmith, A.L. Brooks & B. Patch”.

Congratulations to the Greater Lowell Bar Association and the local Juvenile and Superior Courts here in Lowell on an excellent Law Day ceremony held this noon in the civil session of Lowell Superior Court. Law Day was instituted in 1958 by President Eisenhower in reaction to the massive military parades held in the Soviet Union on May 1st. The message of Law Day was that while the legitimacy of the Soviet government rested on military might, the foundation of the US government was the supremacy of our laws. The program began with the presentation of the colors by the Lowell High School Air Force Junior ROTC Color Guard which was followed by the National Anthem sung by the Lowell High Spindles show choir. An eighth grade class from the neighboring Rogers School then led us all in the Pledge of Allegiance. After remarks by Congresswoman Niki Tsongas, State Senator Steve Panagiotakos and Mayor Bud Caulfield, the four finalists in the bar association essay contest then read their compositions. They were Caitlyn Connerty of Billerica High School, Christopher Heintz of Tewksbury Memorial High School, Katy Nowoswiat of Lowell High and Kelsey Wright of Notre Dame Academy. Katy Nowoswiat won the $1000 scholarship first prize by writing about how the lessons of our World War Two internment of Japanese Americans are instructive in today’s War on Terror. After a some patriotic songs by the Spindles and a rendition of Jackson Browne’s “I Am A Patriot” by Tim Bergeron, the winner of this years’ Lowell High Idol competition, the event adjourned and a luncheon was served to all in attendance.

We’re back on the trail of the Claypit Cemetery. For those of you who missed our earlier posts on this topic, the Claypit is an abandoned colonial era burial ground in Lowell’s Pawtucketville section. It’s right in the middle of a large land box bounded by Pawtucket Boulevard, Old Ferry Road, Varnum Ave and Townsend Ave. The city of Lowell apparently believes the cemetery is owned by the town of Dracut, but I’ve done enough research to shed considerable doubt on that conclusion. We still don’t know the true owner, but the search continues.

It’s a few days late, but I can’t let Patriot’s Day pass without acknowledging the accomplishments of some volunteer soldiers from Lowell in the opening days of the Civil War:

At the top of the stairs leading to the third floor rotunda of the Massachusetts State House in Boston is a colorful mural, ten feet high and fifteen feet wide that depicts the soldiers of the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment fighting a well-armed mob of angry civilians in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 19, 1861. The regiment had left Lowell, Massachusetts, on April 17, just two days after the surrender of Fort Sumter, in response to President Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteer troops to put down the rebellion. En route to Washington, DC, the troops were attacked by Southern sympathizers in Baltimore. Four soldiers were killed, making them the first men to die in the Civil War.

Two of the dead, Luther Ladd and Addison Whitney, were young mill workers from the city of Lowell. The city erected a monument in their honor in 1865. It was to be dedicated on the fourth anniversary of the Baltimore riot, but the ceremony was postponed until the fall of that year because of President Lincoln’s assassination. That monument, a twenty-five foot high granite obelisk, sits on a grass triangle in front of Lowell City Hall which is also the final resting place of Ladd, Whitney and a third soldier, Charles Taylor.

The riot in Baltimore gave the Sixth Massachusetts an early prominence that was eclipsed by the enormous scope of the war and that regiment’s limited participation in it. In the early stages of the war, however, Ladd, Whitney, Taylor and Sumner Needham of Lawrence, were known as the “first martyrs to the rebellion.”

Friends, Lowellians, countrymen lend me your ears;
I come to praise Shakespeare for tis his birthday.

It is not that I love Kerouac less
But that I love Shakespeare more.

William Shakespeare was born 444 years ago today (April 23) in Stratford on Avon. I love Shakespeare and have since the first time I read him in the 10th grade. The play was Julius Caesar and it staggered me…today it still remains my favorite. Here’s a little personal secret…for years I owned two Hollywood movie versions of the classic. One staring Charlton Heston as Mark Antony and Jason Robarts as Brutus. In the other Marlon Brando plays Antony and James Mason, Brutus. Each year on the Ides of March (March 15) I watched one of the two…I must admit by far my favorite was Heston’s…I can still hear him reciting the famous funeral oration:

Come I, to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed;
And, as he plucked his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it.
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved.
If Brutus so unkindly knocked or no;
For Brutus, as you know was Caesar’s angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all.

Unfortunately, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunate” have taken these videos from me…but every Ides of March and April 23rd I can’t help but think of them and the joy this play has given me.
Happy Birthday Bill!

An oped piece in this Sunday’s Globe by the sheriffs of Norfolk and Plymouth County signalled that the end of county government in Massachusetts is near. If you’re confused, don’t worry because you should be. Back in 1997, Middlesex County was abolished by act of the legislature in a type of fiscal mercy killing. Six other counties were also abolished. Here’s the first confusing part: They were abolished as governmental entities but remain as geographic boundaries, hence we still have the Middlesex County Registry of Probate, for example. (Middlesex is divided into two registry of deeds districts). The law that abolished these counties specified that others could remain in existence so long as they remained solvent. Because county government was and is funded primarily through the deeds excise tax, today’s poor real estate market is nudging the remaining counties towards the brink of insolvency it would appear. In a pre-emptive move, the sheriffs of the remaining counties hope the state takes them over and, like their counterparts already working for the Commonwealth, they remain as independently elected officials but receive their funding through the Department of Corrections. If the sheriffs go, that more or less eliminates the need for independent counties and offices such as the registries of deeds would be rolled into the Secretary of State’s Office with the rest of us. Because this effort involves the FY09 state budget, the outcome of this drama should be known fairly soon.