Author Archive

Important Life Lesson

Important Life Lesson By Charles Gargiulo My Mom decided to send me to a Catholic high school after I graduated from my Catholic elementary school. I don’t know why it was such a big deal to her since she never went to church and I never did either, but it…

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Lowell200: The “Sale” of Wamesit

The ”sale” of Wamesit The end of King Philip’s War did not bring an end to the ill-feelings of the English towards the Native Americans. On May 24, 1677, the General Court decreed that all Native Americans living in Massachusetts must remain within the bounds of their assigned towns, like…

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Old Man of the Mountain Day

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the collapse of New Hampshire’s Old Man of the Mountain. The Old Man of the Mountain was a natural rock formation located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, USA. It was a series of five granite cliff ledges that appeared to form the…

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Lowell200: King Philip’s War

King Philip’s War Just to the west of Chelmsford was the town of Groton which was incorporated in 1655 and included all of today’s Groton and Ayer and parts of Pepperell, Shirley, Dunstable, Littleton, and Tyngsborough. Chelmsford and Groton were still the northwest frontier of English settlement in New England…

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Opening Day, Eagle River, Alaska

Opening Day, Eagle River, Alaska By Mike McCormick Stepping into the bracing air, I yank on my gloves and stride across snow filled ruts that gleam like fresh baselines in the narrow strip of dirt driveway. Hundreds of red capped birds chatter like anxious fans as I duck into my…

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Cambodian History: A Brief Review

  Back on April 16, 2016, in the aftermath of the Lowell City Council vote to revoke the invitation extended to General Hun Manet of the Cambodian Army (and the son of Prime Minister Hun Sen), I wrote the following post that gave a brief overview of Cambodian history. With…

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Lowell200: Chelmsford and Shaweshin

Chelmsford and Shaweshin While the boundaries set by the General Court for the new towns of Wamesit and Chelmsford were clear to those living then and there, the exact whereabouts of those lines faded over time. Indeed, Rev. Wilkes Allen in his History of Chelmsford (1820) wrote, the boundary between…

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Lowell200: The Arrival of the Europeans

The Arrival of the Europeans The Virginia Company established a settlement in Jamestown in 1607. That same year, a related company created another settlement at the mouth of the Kennebuck River in today’s Maine. Called Sachadehoc, this place was abandoned a year later after a fruitless and deadly winter. According…

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Lowell200: Wamesit and Pawtucket

The Massachusetts legislature by Special Laws Chapter 112 of 1825, considered and enacted “An Act to Incorporate the Town of Lowell” to be effective March 1, 1826. In recognition of Lowell’s approaching bicentennial, today I begin a series of blog posts called Lowell200. Over the coming months, I hope to…

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No More Silent Springs

This essay appears in the 2023 issue of The Lowell Review, just released this month, which includes a 55-page feature on Climate and Nature as well as writing about baseball, The Beatles, Jack Kerouac, and everything else in the world. The Climate/Nature section has essays, articles, and poems about Rollie’s…

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