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Nearly ten years ago, while working towards a Masters in History at Salem State College, I wrote a thesis called “Steady Men: Civil War Veterans in Postwar Lowell, Massachusetts: 1865-1900” which was a group biography of more than 100 men from Lowell who, as members of the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, fought in the April 19, 1865 Baltimore riot which claimed the lives of their comrades, Luther Ladd and Addison Whitney (for whom the Ladd & Whitney Monument in front of City Hall is named).  Using a wide variety of records, I tried to discover what happened to these men from the end of the Civil War up to 1900 and the beginning of the next century.  Because these men were my virtual companions for several years, their names remain quite familiar to me.  And so when on Sunday at the Historical Society program on Charles Allen, Professor Blewett, in completely different contexts, mentioned not one, but two of the men of the Sixth, I felt like I’d been reacquainted with old friends.

First came Thomas O. Allen, the older brother of Charles by 13 years.  Thomas enlisted in the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment on the day it left Lowell and four days before the Baltimore fight.  He continually re-enlisted with the Regiment, eventually attaining the rank of Major.  After the war, Thomas relocated to Jacksonville, Florida where he was involved in “the lumber business”, his father’s profession here in Lowell.  Thomas returned to Lowell in 1883 and in 1891, was named the city’s Inspector of Milk and Vinegar, a position he held until his death in 1908.

The second familiar name was mentioned in the context of Charles Allen’s election to the Massachusetts State Senate in 1883.  Allen barely defeated his Democratic opponent, Jeremiah Crowley.  Twenty-two years earlier, Crowley was also in Baltimore as a member of the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment.  After the war, Crowley became a lawyer with a thriving practice, served a number of terms on the city’s board of aldermen, and was elected mayor in 1898.  He died in 1901. 

In my thesis, I argued that Civil War veterans played a major (and under-appreciated by historians) role in the development of postwar America, writing in my conclusion that During the Gilded Age, as Stuart McConnell states [in “Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865-1900”] the Civil War hung over the North in a thousand different ways.  The examination of the lives of the veterans of the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry demonstrates the accuracy of McConnell’s assertion.  These men, their lives, and their accomplishments shaped postwar Lowell in hundreds of quiet, subtle ways. 

Many are fascinated by the Civil War.  I’ve always been fascinated by how those who fought in the Civil War helped America transform itself from an agrarian nation to a world power.  In the coming weeks I’ll share some examples of how this occurred here in Lowell.

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Each day in April this blog will feature a haiku as part of a community poetry project for National Poetry Month in Lowell. If you would like to send a haiku to be considered for publication on the main page, please send either a traditional haiku (5-7-5 syllables), an informal ”Western haiku” of three short lines, or one of your favorites from the long tradition of haiku (not copyrighted work) to info@loompress.com

The fisherman’s wife

pleads to be looked at like a

sought after salmon

— Janet Stevenson

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After attending yesterday’s Lowell Historical Society program on Charles H. Allen, I summarized much of what was said about Allen by Professors Blewett and Edwards in a post that was primarily biographical.  But I left out a few anecdotes that had me grinning or shaking my head.  Here’s what I mean:

Allen was only 23 years old but already a rising star in local Republican ranks when he first won a seat on the Lowell School Committee.  Professor Blewett explained that Allen’s big achievement on the School Committee was the establishment of a night school in which immigrants could study English.  My surprise at this fact lasted only until Blewett suggested that the Republicans were currying favor with the recently arrived (this was in the early 1870s) French Canadian immigrants, trying to find ways to draw them into the Republican Party to offset the Irish who dominated the Democratic Party. 

Having been born in 1848, Allen was too young to have served in the Civil War, yet after Allen gained popularity in Massachusetts Republican circles in the 1870s, the governor of the Commonwealth appointed him as a military advisor with the rank of Colonel.  Professor Blewett suggested that this appointment may have contributed to the apparent estrangement of Allen’s older brother Thomas from Charles and the rest of the family since Thomas had seen four years of fighting during the Civil War but had only attained the rank of Major.  (Look for a future post on Thomas Allen, an interesting character in his own right).

In 1898 when Theodore Roosevelt resigned as Assistant Secretary of State to form the “Rough Riders”, the Secretary of the Navy, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts chose Charles Allen, who never served in the navy and may not have even set foot on a boat), as Roosevelt’s replacement.  After a short time in this position, Allen was chosen as the first civilian Governor of Puerto Rico.  (No one mentioned whether he was fluent in Spanish, but I’m guessing he was not).  Allen served as governor for 17 months much of which was spent here in Lowell or in Washington.

Shortly after resigning as governor, Allen was recruited by Republican friends to work as an executive at two very large New York banks and eventually became the president of the American Sugar Refining Company which did business in Puerto Rico and around the Carribean.

How would this record be viewed today?  You have a school committee member who sponsors a tax payer funded program that is used to recruit immigrants to his party; a person who is not a veteran parading around in a fancy uniform and acting like one; a person with no naval experience appointed to a high ranking position in the Navy Department; an appointed civilian governor of a newly captured territory who did not speak the language and did not spend much of his term there; after leaving government service, he passed through the revolving door to a company whose business interests he may have promoted in his official capacity as governor. Doesn’t that last paragraph sound like it’s referring to events of 100 days ago, not 100 years? 

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I want to echo Mimi’s recommendation to check out Mr Mill City, particularly the “Backtalk All Stars” which provides hilariously edgy commentary on the week’s more inane Backtalk items.  But Mr Mill City also has a serious and seriously local side.  Their account (two guys write MMC) of a recent neighborhood meeting at the Centerville Police Precinct on enforcement of the city’s dog leash ordinance is a great example of how hyperlocal blogs can provide front line news reporting for the community.  (Wikipedia defines hyperlocal as “news coverage of community-level events not generally covered by the mainstream media”).  And their review of the Cameo Diner has me ready to drive over the Lakeview Ave for breakfast some day.  So congratulations to one of the new blogs in town; keep the content flowing.

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Tewksbury politics has entered the world of YouTube. The video below is of selectman candidate Scott Wilson pitching his candidacy to Tewksbury voters. Few would argue that YouTube has changed the face of national politics and now the revolution is trickling down to local races. YouTube is free, easy and effective… and best of all it reaches the younger generation of voters that don’t pay attention to more traditional means of advertising. I couldn’t find any other Tewksbury candidates on YouTube…if you are aware of any let me know and I will happily post them.
As usual here are the details of the video…it was posted by jdwent4444 and the following is his/her description of the video.

Scott Wilson is running for Board of Selectmen in Tewksbury, MA. He is the right person at the right time for our town. He will bring new ideas, new energy and a new long-term vision to the board. Scott is committed to growing our town through economic development and not always looking to the taxpayers to balance the town’s budget

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Charles Herbert Allen was born in Lowell in 1848 and went on to serve on the Lowell School Committee, as a State Representative, a Congressman, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and the first civilian Governor of Puerto Rico.  Today UML Professors Mary Blewett and Lisa Edwards presented “Will the Real Charles Herbert Allen Please Stand Up?”, a lecture sponsored by the Lowell Historical Society in Allen’s former home (pictured above) which is now the office of UML Chancellor Marty Meehan.

Allen, whose father owned the Otis Allen Lumber Company, grew up at 945 Middlesex Street, graduated from Lowell High in 1865 and Amherst College in 1869.  He married the next year and was also elected to the Lowell School Committee.  Very active in Republican politics, Allen was soon elected state representative and then state senator. 

In 1884, Allen was elected to Congress where he served two terms.  While in Washington, he made contacts with a new generation of Republican leaders such as Henry Cabot Lodge.  These friendships helped Allen secure important positions in government (Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Governor of Puerto Rico) and in business (officer of Morton Trust and president of American Sugar Refining Company).

Allen returned to Lowell permanently in 1920 spent his time painting and enjoying the garden at “The Terraces” which he had purchased in 1890.  Allen died on April 20, 1834.  Photographs of Allen, his house and his times can be found on the UML Center for Lowell History website.

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Last Thursday evening, the 119 Gallery on Chelmsford Street hosted another literary program in partnership with the Lowell Poetry Network. Poet Paula McCarron sent me the following report:

“I’m sure you will hear from others, but here are a few observations of mine: Janet Stevenson is to be thanked for once again organizing and graciously hosting the 119 Gallery reading. Gallery director Walter Wright was in the room as was Billy Perrault who true to form documented the reading on video. Gigi Thibodeau read to an appreciative audience, which included some of her students from UMass Lowell. One of Thibodeau’s poems featured specific instructions on the proper use of Ouija boards. Unfortunately, Leo Racicot, who was also listed as a featured poet, was not in attendance. The reading proceeded with several  open mic poets including Stephen Anstey, Ed Marshall, Billy Perrault, Patrick Shaughnessy, me — and Anthony Febo (who facilitates poetry workshops with young writers and hosts the regular poetry slam at Brew’d Awakening coffee house) and a man whose name I cannot recall — on the Lowell Poetry Slam scene.  Free current copies of the literary journal Poetry were available as were tasty treats. It was a great way to spend an almost spring evening. Next month: Another poetry shindig at the 119 Gallery!” — Paula McCarron

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There’s a big story in today’s Globe about the upcoming Lowell Film Festival which will take place next weekend at various times and places around the city (check out the Festival website for the schedule).  The Globe story has Bob Forrant explaining why Lowell needs a place that will show independent films on a routine basis.  He also speaks about the history of theaters in Lowell’s past, a recent topic on this blog that generated quite a few comments.

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April is National Poetry Month. For the past several years, the Lowell Poetry Network and other partners have been organizing activities in connection with the nationwide focus on poetry. I would like to post one haiku on this blog each day in April as a community project for National Poetry Month. We will need 30 haiku, starting this coming Wednesday. If you have a haiku that you would like to have considered for the haiku project, please send it to me at info@loompress.com. Please limit the submission to one haiku, which can be one that you have written or one from the vast literary tradition. We cannot use any haiku from writers whose work is still protected by copyright, for example Jack Kerouac, unless there is special permission, so please don’t send haiku by modern-era writers. You can send a traditional three-line haiku (5-7-5 syllables) or write a “Western haiku,” as Kerouac called the form: “…simply say a lot in three short lines in any Western language.” More Kerouac: “…a Haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi Pastorella.” He says haiku “pack in a whole vision of life in three short lines.” Here’s a classic from the Japanese tradition for this rainy Sunday:

     A day of quiet gladness, —

Mount Fuji is veiled

     In misty rain.

— Basho (1644-1694)

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For several months now I’ve been contemplating cutting the landline telephone cord and using my cell phone for all voice communications.  The main attraction is the reduction in cost that using only one phone would bring.  The cell phone is more expensive, but that will be the last thing to go.  Is the landline, despite its relative affordability, a luxury that can be jettisoned in these fiscally frugal times, just like home delivery of a newspaper?

Admittedly, the tug of the old technology is still strong.  While I can’t remember the last time someone called after “looking up” my number in the phone book, it is nice to be listed in a central directory just in case – cell numbers have no such listing (which is probably a good thing).  I also like the home phone’s E911 feature that allows the police to know where the call is coming from even if you can’t speak – that doesn’t work on a cell phone.  And with many members of my extended family, both present but especially past, having been employees of New England Telephone and Telegraph and its offspring, there is still some loyalty to what’s left of the old phone company.

Well fate has chosen this weekend to give me a preview of life without a landline.  Friday night I discovered my home phone was dead for some reason.  The admin section of the phone book urged me to file my repair request online so I went to the Verizon website and filled out a clunky form describing my problem.  Mid-morning on Saturday, I utilized the website’s “check status of your repair request” to be told there were no pending repair requests on my line.  (Do you think a phone company would operate a crappy website on purpose, sort of as a reminder of why you should be using the phone in the first place?  Just wondering).  My second attempt to report the outage involved calling Verizon on my cell phone.  After listening to a recording telling me my call may be recorded to ensure quality service, I got to speak with an extremely competent computer at the Verizon end.  Her businesslike voice prompted me to blurt out a series of yes’s and no’s and even a “that will be fine” and our conversation ended with her cheerfully informing me that my phone will be fixed no later than 6 p.m. – on Monday.  Which is a full 72 hours after I first reported the outage.  (I’m still baffled as to why they record phone calls that involve a human being at the customer end only). 

What I find most telling is that neither the delay in filing the report caused by the Verizon website hiccup nor the “6 pm Monday” repair estimate has gotten me the least bit upset or even concerned.  And that’s because after just a few hours of not having a landline phone I discovered how easy it is to do without one.  The few people who routinely call me at home already have my cell number and most of the remaining calls are pain-in-the-neck telemarketers I’d rather not speak with in the first place.  So will I get rid of my landline any time soon?  Probably not, but after this weekend’s dry run of cell phone only life, I’m one step closer to cutting that cord.

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