Boston Flora

Tag: Jamaica Plain Historical Society

  • Monday, July 27, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm – Exploring Olmsted Park and Jamaica Pond

    Join The Emerald Necklace Conservancy for a tour in partnership with the Jamaica Plain Historical Society, on July 27 at 11 am. Discover the wooded paths, babbling brooks and rolling hills of Olmsted Park and Pinebank, the forested midway point of Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace and source of the Muddy River.

    This tour will guide attendees through many of the natural and historic landmarks found in the heart of the Necklace: from glacial ponds to structures that once belonged to the Founding Fathers, and everything in-between. Meet at the Downes Field Parking Lot on Pond Avenue in Brookline.

    Registration required – free. https://www.emeraldnecklace.org/event/tour-olmsted-park-7-27/

  • Sunday, August 25, 10:00 am – 11:30 am – Exploring Olmsted Park and Jamaica Pond

    Join The Emerald Necklace Conservancy on August 25 at 10 am for a new tour in partnership with the Jamaica Plain Historical Society. Discover the wooded paths, babbling brooks and rolling hills of Olmsted Park and Pinebank, the forested midway point of Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace and source of the Muddy River. 

    This free tour will guide attendees through many of the natural and historic landmarks found in the heart of the Necklace: from glacial ponds to structures that once belonged to the Founding Fathers, and everything in-between!

    Registration required at https://www.emeraldnecklace.org/event/exploring-olmsted-park-2/

  • Saturday, August 10, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm – Walking Tour of Jamaica Pond

    Travel around the Pond with the Jamaica Plain Historical Society on Saturday, August 10 from 11 – 12:30. Once a district that only included the houses of Boston’s elite, the Pond later was put to industrial use as tons of ice were harvested each winter. Learn about the movers and shakers such as Francis Parkman and James Michael Curley who made their homes on the Pond’s shores. Discover how the Pond was transformed from private estates and warehouses into the parkland we know today. 

    The tour is free to the public. Tours last between 60 and 90 minutes and are canceled in case of heavy rain. No reservations are required, just meet the guide at the bandstand, 507 Jamaicaway in Jamaica Plain.

  • Saturday, August 11, 11:00 am – Historic Walking Tour of Jamaica Pond

    Please join The Jamaica Plain Historical Society for our 23rd season of historic walking tours. All JPHS tours are free to the public. All tours are held on Saturday at 11:00 a.m. sharp. Tours last between 60 and 90 minutes and are canceled in case of heavy rain. No reservations are required, just meet the guide at the location listed. On August 11, the tour will feature Jamaica Pond. Once a district that only included the houses of Boston’s elite, the Pond later was put to industrial use as tons of ice were harvested there each winter. Learn about the movers and shakers such as Francis Parkman and James Michael Curley who made their homes on the Pond’s shores. Discover how the Pond was transformed from private estates and warehouses into the parkland we know today.

    Leaves from the Bandstand, Pond St. and Jamaicaway. For a complete list of other tours and dates, visit https://www.jphs.org/2018-walking-tours/

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  • Wednesday, October 25, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Weird and Worrisome Tour

    All neighborhoods have secrets but some are stranger than others. Just in time for Halloween, we will explore Jamaica Plain in Boston. Participants will stop at sites of anarchist robberies, stuffed elephants, and a nervine asylum and hear tales of train wrecks and things that lurk beneath the surface of Jamaica Pond. The Massachusetts Historical Society tour is hosted in collaboration with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and the Jamaica Plain Historical Society. Meet on Wednesday, October 25 at 6 at the Loring-Greenough House, 12 South Street in Jamaica Plain. $10 registration fee (no charge for MHS, ENC, or JPHS members.) Image from www.promptguides.com.

  • Sunday, October 8, 2:00 pm – George Bucknam Dorr: From Jamaica Pond to Commonwealth Avenue

    George Bucknam Dorr, known as the “Father of Acadia”, was the founder of the oldest national park east of the Mississippi River. The roots of George B. Dorr’s land conservation achievements are deeply embedded on the Jamaica Pond shoreline where he was born in 1853. Childhood exposure to other Massachusetts landscapes also shaped his later success on the mid-Maine coast. Throughout Dorr’s life, notables with attachments to Jamaica Plain–Charles S. Sargent, Edith Wharton, Francis Parkman, Ellen Swallow Richards, Henry & Charles P. Bowditch, Margaret Fuller, and Charles Eliot–kept the Father of Acadia National Park tethered to the place where he spent the first decade of his life. Speaker Ronald H. Epp is the author of Creating Acadia National Park: The Biography of George Bucknam Dorr and has spent the last two decades researching the Massachusetts families that influenced the development of conservation philanthropy.
    Fee Free, but registration required. This October 8 lecture begins at 2 pm in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum. Offered in collaboration with the Jamaica Plain Historical Society. Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

  • Sunday, December 7, 2:00 pm – Jamaica Pond & Boston’s Water System

    From the 1630 settlement of Boston, people needed a water supply. On Sunday, December 7 at 2 pm, Marcis Kempe, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum and an avid water supply historian will discuss the early attempts by Boston residents to find drinking water on Shawmut peninsula. Attempts at wood pipe water systems led eventually to the construction of Boston’s 1796 Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corporation which fulfilled a need for water supply piped directly into houses. Mr. Kempe will chronicle this story and that of 1848 Boston’s municipal water system that eventually replaced the wooden pipes. He will also discuss the further growth of the Metropolitan Boston water system at the turn of the century and the steps taken to protect the public from the growing pollution of water sources. Come and join the Jamaica Plain Historical Society to learn about the important people and events in the Jamaica Pond story and how this modest system grew into today’s nationally acclaimed Metropolitan Boston area water supply.

    Free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. This event is being hosted by the Arnold Arboretum at 125 Arborway, so please check their website, www.arboretum.harvard.edu, for directions and parking instructions. Garden Club of the Back Bay members please note that our March excursion will be to the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum to hear Mr. Kempe speak.

  • Wednesday, November 12, 5:30 tour, 6:00 pm lecture – Prohibition: Boston Dry/Boston Wet

    The Jamaica Plain Historical Society presents Stephanie Schorow, author of Drinking Boston: A History of the City and its Spirits, who will discuss the history of Boston during the era when the 18th Amendment was in effect. Prohibition in Boston was a period rife with class politics, social reform, and opportunism. Our hosts will be the Boston Beer Company, housed in the historic Brewery Complex where Haffenreffer survived Prohibition by brewing ‘near beer’ and sodas.

    In Drinking Boston, Stephanie Schorow serves up a remarkable cocktail representative of Boston’s intoxicating story: its spirit of invention, its hardscrabble politics, its mythology, and the city’s never-ending battle between personal freedom and civic reform-all told through the lens of the bottom of a cocktail glass.

    Come early (at 5:30) to the Sam Adams Brewery at 30 Germania Street in Boston on Wednesday, November 12 to go on a tour of the Samuel Adams Brewery before the talk. Books will be for sale.

  • Saturday, May 31, 11:00 am – Historic Interiors: Evolution and Preservation

    Historic interiors are an often overlooked element of historic properties which can tell a compelling story of a house’s history and evolution over time. Join Historic New England’s Sally Zimmerman and Jess Phelps on Saturday, May 31 at 11:00 am as they chart home interiors over time and explore options and tools for protecting these unique components of our collective built heritage. The program, co-sponsored with the Jamaica Plain Historical Society and hosted by the Jamaica Plain Tuesday Club, will take place at the Loring-Greenough House, 12 South Street, Jamaica Plain. The program is free and open to the public, although a $5 donation to the preservation of the Georgian mansion will be greatly appreciated.

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  • Monday, March 3, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – The Swan Boats

    The Swan Boats are some of the most historic figures in the Boston Public Garden, but do you ever wonder where they came from? Lyn Paget is the fourth generation of Swan Boat operators, dating back to 1877. Originally started by Lyn’s great grandfather, Robert Paget, and preserved by her great grandmother, Julia Paget, the Public Garden’s Swan Boats are enduring and iconic symbols of Boston.

    Initially starting out with one row boat, the Paget family adopted a number of paddle boats and christened them with the now iconic Swan imagery. Inspired by “Lohengrin”, an opera based on the medieval German story in which the protagonist traverses on a boat that is pulled by a swan, the Swan Boats are an important part of the Public Garden’s history.

    While the Swan Boats may not be in operation until April, the opportunity to learn more about them is coming up. On March 3rd, the Connolly branch of the Boston Public Library will be hosting a talk given by Lyn Paget on the Swan Boats. This will be a great chance to learn about the Swan Boat’s history, the Paget family’s traditions, and practices behind a quintessential Boston activity that has been enjoyed by Bostonians and visitors alike for over 136 years.

    This lecture is free of charge on March 3rd at 6:30 to 7:30 at the Connolly Branch of the Boston Public Library, located at 422 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain. This event is recommended for young adults, college students, adults and seniors and is sponsored by the Jamaica Plain Historical Society.

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