Vast Public Indifference

via With the advent of the sesquicentennial, there has been a surge of interest in all things related to the Civil War. At Harvard, t...

On the death of Ezekiel Cheever, noted schoolmaster, Samuel Sewall composed this obituary: He was born January, 25. 1614. Came over to N-E...

On Thursday, we saw the family of convicted pirate John Lambert successfully lobby Judge Sewall for permission to bury Lambert in King'...

We have already seen what Samuel Sewall thought about commemorating executed criminals. In the case of the executed Quakers , he argued that...

In 1701, Samuel Sewall was one of the judges who heard the case of Esther Rogers, accused of murdering an infant daughter born out of wedloc...

Othniel Tripp, 1740, NCBG, Newport, RI In Memory of  Othniel Tripp, died March ye 19Th 1740 In ye 66Th year of his age. Oth...

From CNN: Plan Would Replace Controversial Grave Markers

I am incredibly discouraged by my students' final projects. Yes, I know that I am teaching for a Gen Ed class, but it is still a Harvard...

The Social Security list of the top 1,000 baby names for 2010 is out! Let's see how I did predicting the top risers and fallers : Fas...

I've been enjoying Samuel Sewall's accounts of sightseeing in England during his trip in 1689 (he was part of the delegation atte...

Samuel Sewall did not like Quakers. This was hardly an extraordinary position among Massachusetts Puritans, but Sewall was particularly str...

As a student of colonial American mortuary culture, I generally have very little to say about modern foreign policy, but my ears perked up w...

It's been a wild week here. Since last Friday, I have, moved to a new house with my husband, 6-month-old daughter, cat, and far, far t...

The Social Security list of the top 1,000 baby names for 2010 will be coming out in the next few weeks. The Baby Name Wizard always has a co...

Zebudah Parmenter m. Phineas Parmenter, 3 June 1736 Sudbury, MA The KJV doesn't seem to have Y names — it renders them all a...

Xerxes Paulk Springfield, MA emigrated to Ohio in 1798 Ok, Xerxes is not that obscure. There is limited choice in X names in the Bible, th...

Meet Vajezatha Daniels of Mendon, MA. I think this goes on the list of names that may have been ok once upon a time, but are not good fo...

The First Gun is Fired by George F. Root  April 1861 The first gun is fired!  may God protect the right! Let the free-born sons of the Nort...