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A Late 1890s Vacation from a Tense Ministry

A Late 1890s Vacation from a Tense Ministry

By Bradford MacGowan and Bernie Zelitch

Rev. George F. Kenngott and wife, Lucretia Lewis Kenngott, share a loving moment in the late 1890s at their retreat from Lowell in Isle au Haut, Maine. All photos by John Turner, courtesy of Deer Isle-Stonington Historical Society, unless otherwise noted.

In 1895, three years after Rev. George F. Kenngott (1864-1934) arrived at First Congregational Church Lowell, his progressive views became the center of what was surely the city’s most public religious controversy.

Photographs of Kenngott and his wife, Lucretia Lewis Kenngott (1869-1964) show them relaxing during this trying time. They suggest the way they forgot their troubles was very similar to how people do it today: a vacation getaway, in their case, to a small island in the Penobscot Bay, Isle Au Haut. That’s where Lucretia grew up and where much of her family remained, including her uncle John Turner who took these photos.

The photos on this page came from a box of glass plate negatives owned by the Deer Isle Stonington Historical Society. There are no known photos of the Kenngotts while they lived in Lowell.

A December 22, 1895 line drawing of Kenngott (left, Boston Sunday Post) helps us date the portrait of him below in Maine to maybe 1896-97, or the time of his troubles with the old church and founding a new church. Kristin Lewis of the Isle au Haut Historical Society said when he visited, he was called “Kenny” and he filled the local church when he preached. Perhaps in the photo below he is writing a sermon.

In 1892, Kenngott first became pastor at First Congregational, later known as the Smith Baker Center and today the Lowell Center for the Arts. A graduate of Amherst College and Andover Theological Seminary, he appeared destined for a distinguished ministry. During his installation service, Rev. Dr. Nehemiah Boynton of Union Congregational Church, Boston, urged him to carry the church’s mission beyond its sanctuary into “the tenements of the poor as well as the mansions of the rich,” a challenge that foreshadowed Kenngott’s lifelong concern for the city’s working people. His early ministry was widely praised, and both he and his wife, who was noted for her musical abilities, quickly became popular figures within the congregation.

The Kenngotts bicycling on Isle au Haut.

By late 1895, however, newspapers seized on rumors that Mrs. Kenngott’s supposedly fashionable attire had scandalized conservative members, even claiming she had appeared in “a low-necked dress.” Contemporary accounts, however, repeatedly dismissed the story—one paper remarked that it was “nothing of the sort”, and treated it as little more than gossip.

Behind the headlines lay a far more significant dispute: a struggle over leadership, authority, and the future direction of the church. Kenngott’s energetic, reform-minded style of ministry clashed with a small but influential group of church leaders, while contemporary newspapers reported that nearly three-fourths of the congregation, especially its younger members, remained firmly behind him. After months of increasingly bitter meetings and unsuccessful attempts to persuade him to resign, Kenngott stepped down to prevent further division. The schism culminated in the organization of the First Trinitarian Congregational Church in 1896, where many of his supporters followed him, making it one of the most significant splits in Lowell’s church history.

Lucretia Kenngott relaxing on a hammock.

A photo of Lucretia probably taken in California after 1912 shows her flamboyant side. Courtesy Isle au Haut Historical Society.

The controversy proved to be a turning point rather than an ending. Kenngott increasingly devoted himself to studying Lowell’s housing, public health, education, municipal government, labor conditions, and immigrant neighborhoods, work that culminated in Record of a City. Shortly after its publication in 1912, he left Lowell for Los Angeles to become superintendent of the Congregational Church Extension Society. When he died in 1934, the Lowell Sun remembered him not for the church controversy but for his scholarship and progressive vision. Today, his work remains one of the most valuable contemporary accounts of Lowell during the Progressive Era and the challenges faced by its immigrant communities.

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Bradford MacGowan is secretary of Lowell Center for the Arts and Bernie Zelitch is founder and director of by Annie Powell

From Turntable to Touchscreen

From Turntable to Touchscreen

By Leo Racicot

When I was growing up, the radio was one of the few sources of recreation to be had. Not only did it provide entertainment, it offered us music education; we learned who was popular, who the singers of the day were, what the hits were and helped us develop our musical taste. My parents, aunts and uncles were older than those of my peers so my young ears were exposed early on to the Big Band sounds of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman, the singers of The Great American Songbook like Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Peggy Lee. Whether at home or in the car, listening to the radio was the way to pass the time in between meals or on a rainy Saturday.

But wasn’t it exciting then when our mother got Diane and me a record player one Christmas; we finally had the chance to listen to our favorite singers on LP (long playing discs, now called vinyl) or 45 rpm, smaller discs usually containing a hit song on one side, a lesser-known song on the flip (or B) side. To play a 7-inch 45 rpm record with a large center hole on a standard-sized turntable, a small plastic piece called a “45 adapter” or “spider” was snapped directly into the middle of the record to bridge the size difference. With LPs, if I liked a favorite track, I never minded getting up off the bed or floor to lift the needle to that groove, bypassing the less favorite songs. I’d play a record so many times, I’d wear out the grooves and hopefully be able to save up enough of my allowance to buy a replacement. Being uncharacteristically shy and reclusive as a boy, I liked to hide away in my bedroom, door closed, and listen to my records. I’d listen for hours. They were at times the only company I had. If a song, a singer or a band caught my ear, I’d run out and buy their album. Some preferred music was The Beatles, Elton John, Chuck Mangione, All Things Julie Andrews. I really liked the musical remake of Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon, didn’t understand why critics had labelled this Burt Bacharach/Hal David movie a flop; I listened endlessly, singing along. I also sang along at the top of my lungs to the soundtrack albums of my two favorite Broadway musicals, Camelot and My Fair Lady. My poor mother who wasn’t a fan of Broadway musicals would beg me to “Shut that music off!”  I was never what anyone would call musically savvy and a particularly embarrassing moment stands out. We students were in the school lunchroom. The subject of music came up among the boys. John Stewart was asking us to name the latest 45 we’d bought. When it came my turn, my answer was Mellow Yellow by the very mellow folk singer, Donovan. The guys dismissed my answer with a collective scoff and moved on to the next kid. I guess Donovan was never what could be called ‘cutting edge’.

I remember one time riding the train to Boston, I became suddenly, nauseatingly ill. I decided to follow through on my Jordan Marsh record buying trip. In the bins, I spied an all-blue cover of a record by a singer named Joni Mitchell whose face was barely visible on the cover’s artwork. I have no idea what drew me to that album, only that the color of the album mirrored the color of my sick stomach, blue. I took it home, instantly captured by its raw honesty, the poetry of its lyrics, It offered a hiding place for pain. Today, in music history, it’s recognized as a masterpiece of confessional music and turned me into a Joni Mitchell fan for a lifetime.

Recently, yy friend, Dick Howe, made a cogent observation when he called record players a part of every home’s furniture. Indeed, no home I knew in those days was without one, either in the bedroom or living room. I remember going with David McKean into his attic on Edson Street, listening together to Electric Light Orchestra, to Iron Butterfly’s In-a-Gada-Da-Vida with its hypnotic notes, Ron Bushy’s mesmerizing drum solo. And how can I forget the time spent with Anthony Kalil in his basement listening to albums by Moms Mabley, Redd Foxx, Cheech and Chong? We’d discovered comedy albums together downtown at Record Lane; we hadn’t known such a thing existed. Mabley and Foxx were known for what was called blue humor, Cheech and Chong for stoned, bong-fueled laughs. Anthony and I felt very naughty listening/laughing there in the dark, keeping a close eye and ear out for his mom, Doris, to come down with the laundry. This certainly wasn’t Pat Boone music.

Around 1965 or so, the 8-track tape was invented. *8-tracks were large, clunky board-like devices. When placed into the player, they made a noisy, kind of starting kachunk sound, much like a garbage truck. To this day, I don’t know why they were so popular. In fact, they didn’t maintain their popularity long — too big, too ungainly; they didn’t store well and too often they broke after only a couple of plays. Today, they remain the brunt of jokes for being a prime example of old-time faulty technology (I might add here that their movie-watching counterpart, Betamax format, was equally annoying as you felt the whole room would shake when the player sucked them into itself. These, too, went out-of-fashion in short order).

In 1979, a new listening device, the walkman, appeared in the culture. Everybody had to have one. Walkmen were lightweight with lightweight headphones so — easy to manage. They were a private, personal portable way to take music with you wherever you went. Cassette tapes became the rage, replacing record players and 8-tracks. The only glitch became that the fragile, almost thread-like tape could easily break or snap, especially on the rewind. These led eventually to the boombox rage. The boombox caught on because in one machine, it usually contained an AM/FM radio, two cassette tape loaders and powerful sound speakers, enabling the user to carry an entire entertainment center around with him/her. They quickly became status symbols, prestigious in urban areas. I recall photos and footage of the late Jeff Buckley walking New York City with his. No one minded the weight of them because they offered so much in the way of musical amusement and were regarded in the 1980s as the height of cool.

Next up on the market were CDs. A CD was a flat music disc. It could be played either in a small, portable disc-shaped player or a larger compact disc machine. CDs had a pure sound, more pristine than record albums and cassette tapes. They took some getting used to. Even though they eliminated the scratchy sound of record albums, child of The Sixties that I am. I missed the old-timey nostalgia and tones of LPs.

In the rapidly-advancing technological developments of the 21st century, it isn’t easy to keep pace with the many changes in how we listen to music. These days, satellite streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music make it possible for music lovers to access literally millions of songs from an invisible or possibly not so invisible ‘cloud’ over the Internet. The subscriber listens. When she/he is done with the tune, it ‘disappears’, creating more storage space for future music. It’s an impressive, even mind-blowing development, sometimes too mind-blowing for me.

As the song lyric goes, “Everything old is new again”. I’ve dug out my old record player and LPs. As I write this, I’m rediscovering the joys of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. There’s a quartet, The Johanna Quartet, wherein four voices, singing four different songs, culminates in the fusion of all four melodies into an epiphany that takes the listener straight into heaven. When we were young, Joe and I loved this musical. He could actually sing the three-hours long score from start-to-finish, a cappella. Extraordinary.

I’m finding how much I missed the soft, fuzzy whoosh of the playing needle on an album; the static-y scratch brings a nostalgic twinge, summoning the listening habits of my youth.

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A radio from the 1960s

Record player

45 rpm record

Sony Walkman

Jeff Buckley with boom box

“The Cloud”

Sweeney Todd poster

Seen & Heard: vol. 35

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday. 

Museum visit: Cape Ann Museum: A recent road trip to Gloucester brought me to the Cape Ann Museum which features a big show called “Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea.” It featured works by Milton Avery, Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko who summered in Gloucester in the 1920s and 1930s. Rothko is the only one of the three I was familiar with although the other two have national reputations. It was interesting to see their early work and contrast it with some of their later stuff which was all part of the exhibit. That was especially true for Rothko, whose most famous paintings feature horizontal rectangles of color stacked atop each other. This showed the transition of his work from realist to abstract. For instance, an early painting might be sand, surf, ocean and sky. The next phase was something similar with the lines between sections all fuzzy-ed up but still a seashore, just one viewed through an out of focus lens. Then his late phase was just strips of color but after seeing the earlier two, the resemblance was quite clear. This exhibit is in Gloucester until September 27. 

Obituary: “Don Nelson, Celtics great who won five titles before revolutionizing coaching, dies at 86” by John Powers in Boston Globe, August 9, 2026. My basketball awakening occurred while watching the Boston Celtics in the early 1970s. I had been to a few Celtics games earlier than that and saw Bill Russell and Sam Jones, but I don’t remember much about that era. In 1970, we moved to a new house and erected a basketball hoop in the driveway. I was 12 years old and big enough to have my shots reach the rim consistently (although not necessarily go through the rim), so it was natural to seek out on TV the game we played everyday in the driveway. My era’s Celtics were led by John Havlicek, Dave Cowens and Jo Jo White with Paul Silas and Don Nelson as important supporting players. Nelson had sat on the LA Laker’s bench for a couple of seasons and was about to be cut when Red Auerbach bought his rights for $1000 and he became a Celtic. He won three championships in the final years of the Bill Russell phase, then was a key player in the transition to the next phase of Celtics championships (in 1974 vs the Milwaukee Bucks and in 1976 vs the Phoenix Suns). When Nelson retired, he became an assistant coach in Milwaukee and soon a head coach, a position he held with various teams for 31 years and which earned him a spot in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He retired to Hawaii where he reportedly played a lot of poker and smoked a lot of marijuana until he passed away this month at age 86. 

Article: “Two U.K. Scholars Started a Podcast. ‘The Rest is History.” by Esther Bintliff in New York Times on August 23, 2026. Each morning when I exercise, I listen to a podcast. I avoid shows that are overtly political and lean towards technology and the media (although politics intrudes on both of those topics these days). I tried several history podcasts but didn’t enjoy them. Until I found The Rest is History, which I listen to regularly and with great enjoyment. I’m not alone: this show is the most popular history podcast in the US with 30 million listeners. It features to English historians, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. Show topics range from the ancient Aztecs to “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. There are two hour-long episodes each week and a topic typically covers several episodes. (The story of the Titanic stretched to eight episodes). On a typical episode, one host will take the lead and drive the narrative while the other plays off of him with comments and questions. While a tremendous amount of information is conveyed to listeners, so is ample laughter since life, even when tragic, can also be comic. Coincidentally, Holland was urged to try the podcast format by his brother James, another historian and podcast host. His World War II series, “We have ways of making you talk” which is co-hosted by comedian Al Murray, is equally entertaining although the topics are more limited. I don’t do Spotify but I assume the podcast is there, but I get it on YouTube Music and on Amazon Prime. 

Book Review: Fire and Light: How the Enlightenment Transformed Our World by James MacGregor Burns (2013). If you read this column regularly, you know I’ve doing a (moderately) deep dive into the Enlightenment because, as I wrote previously, the regime in Washington seems determined to drag us back to the Middle Ages and I want to recall what helped the world emerge from that period. At the time this book was written, Burns was a history professor at Williams College (in Williamstown, Mass) and had won the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of FDR. Much of the book sketches the major propositions advanced by the major enlightenment figures (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume and many others). But the part of the book I found most interesting and insightful (to me) was the premium our country’s founders, especially John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, placed on public education. A populace that was uneducated and unread would too easily fall under the sway of a con man since the world is a complicated place and if you don’t have the mental tools to work through those complexities you will default to simple solutions that are untrue but which sound good and feel comforting. 

L’Etoile – A Star on Prince Street, Chapter 3

Two years ago, Louise Peloquin began sharing excerpts from L’Etoile, a French-language newspaper published in Lowell from 1886 to 1957. At my urging, she has agreed to compile some of her previous posts with added contextual information into a book manuscript to be called, L’Etoile: A Star on Prince Street. Starting this week, Louise will present draft chapters from the book in serial form here on the blog. Today, we have another installment.

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L’Etoile – A Star on Prince Street

Chapter 3 – A Vision for L’Etoile

By Louise Peloquin

Louis-A. Biron and Paul Chaput had a vision for L’Etoile. Here is the newspaper’s first editorial after they acquired it in 1910.

[original French]

« L’Etoile

Journal Quotidien, Publié par L’Etoile Publishing Company

Abonnement, $3.00 Par Année

Vendredi, 7 octobre 1910

L’Etoile

Nous reprenons aujourd’hui la publication de L’Etoile, interrompue pour les raisons que l’on sait et sur lesquelles nous ne voyons pas la nécessité de revenir.

Nous allons prendre de la vieille Etoile, c’est-à-dire celle de ses fondateurs, ce qui nous paraît être digne d’être conservé, pour rejeter les méthodes et les principes qui ne s’accordent pas avec la conception que nous nous sommes formée du journalisme dans nos centres franco-américains.

L’Etoile des anciens jours a été un ardent et sincère défenseur de la cause franco-américaine ; nous suivrons cette même voie, mais nous userons de beaucoup de circonspection et de modération, évitant soigneusement de mettre inutilement le feu aux poudres.

Nous relaterons les événements, nous jugerons les actes avec une entière impartialité, sans aucun parti pris. Nous pensons que c’est là le besoin de l’heure présente dans notre ville. Nous préférons être une cause d’entente et de bon vouloir les uns envers les autres qu’un brandon de discorde, comme trop de journaux, mal inspirés, sont portés à le devenir.

Enfin, nous espérons faire un journal irréprochable, contrôlant le plus possible les nouvelles que nous publierons, choisissant nos reproductions avec soin. Cela devrait suffire pour nous mériter l’estime et la confiance du public. Il ne conviendrait pas d’ailleurs de parler de nos principes ou de faire une profession de foi; nous laissons à nos lecteurs le soin de nous juger à l’œuvre. »

[English translation]

“L’Etoile

Daily Newspaper  Published by L’Etoile Publishing Company

Subscription, $3.00 Per Year.

Friday, October 7, 1910

L’Etoile

Today, we are taking over the publication of L’Etoile, interrupted for the reasons we know and on which we shall not come back.

We shall take from the old Etoile, that-is-to-say that of its founders, what appears to us to be worthy of conserving, in order to reject the methods and the principles which are not in accordance with the conception we have formed of journalism in our Franco-American centers.

L’Etoile of former days was an ardent and sincere defender of the Franco-American cause; we shall follow this same path but we shall use a lot of circumspection and moderation, carefully avoiding needlessly adding fuel to the fire.

We shall relate events, we shall judge acts with complete impartiality, without any bias. We think that therein lies the present need in our city. We prefer to be a cause of entente and of good will with one another than to be a bone of contention, as too many ill-inspired newspapers are inclined to become.

Finally, we hope to make an irreproachable newspaper, supervising, as much as possible, the news we shall publish, choosing our reproductions with care. That should suffice for us to merit the esteem and the confidence of the public. It would not be suitable, in any case, to speak of our principles or to make a profession of faith; we leave to our readers the task of judging us by our work.”

     Interviewed in 1994 by a Sorbonne student pursuing research on L’Etoile, Biron’s third and youngest child Marthe, who had worked at her father’s newspaper covering daily news, writing features, editorials and a variety of tasks, recounted:

“My father was committed to the survival of the language, the culture, the Franco-American identity. However, he encouraged biculturalism because, according to him, one must not remain a stranger in the country where one has chosen to live…. The newspapers greatly encouraged the immigrants who wished to remain to request citizenship in order to enable them to influence their milieu, to use their talents and to have all of the privileges granted to citizens…. The study of English was also encouraged to allow them to run for local elections, to succeed in business and to communicate with other groups….

The newspaper was his mission. However, he had taken certain precautions to guarantee that it would not be his main source of livelihood. That gave him more independence of thought because no one could buy his opinion.”

     It is important to note that L’Etoile Publishing Company offered a wide range of printing services which we will present in chapter 5 about the newspaper’s financial livelihood.

L’Etoile’s vocation was to serve the local and regional community as a school, a platform and a beacon as evidenced in the speech guest speaker Louis-A. Biron delivered at a New England Foreign Language Newspaper Association annual convention in the 1940’s. L’Etoile was a NEFLNA member.

In a world where concern about misinformation, disinformation and fake news is widespread, it is interesting to read about how a Lowell-based newspaperman described the press some eighty years ago. Here are excerpts from the original French version followed by the English translation.

« La presse…représente l’école et la tribune…. Chaque jour, elle nous donne soit une leçon de morale ou d’histoire ; elle nous parle d’un pays, de ses habitants et de leurs moeurs. Sa mission est parfois aussi délicate que difficile. Comme l’histoire, elle doit relater les faits sans toutefois blesser les susceptibilités. Il lui faut cependant parler, il faut que les événements aient leur cours, elle ne peut rien si ce n’est aider le lecteur à démêler le bon grain de l’ivraie…. Elle doit être exempte de toute souillure….

J’ai dit aussi qu’elle représente une tribune. C’est en effet un orateur muet qui, au moyen de la plume, se fait entendre par le monde entier…. Le temps dissipe quelque peu les paroles de l’école, mais, comme emportées par le vent, les idées semées par la presse ne sauraient si vite disparaître….

La presse, mesdames et messieurs, est devenue un guide indispensable. Sans elle, nous sommes dans l’obscurité, l’ennemi est à nos portes et nous l’ignorons….

La presse…est la vie du peuple comme du commerce. Les peuples vivent les uns avec les autres par l’échange de leurs produits, mais encore plus par l’échange de leurs idées.

La presse nous met en relation avec l’étranger et n’est-ce pas que la lumière jaillit à travers le choc des idées? Je dirai plus encore, c’est un élément moralisateur. Elle exalte la valeur et flétrit le mal…. Elle est l’ami du peuple comme l’élément le plus nécessaire à la civilisation et au progrès matériel et intellectuel du monde entier.

Aujourd’hui, elle nous parle d’actions héroïques, demain il s’agira peut-être de choses plus sombres mais toujours elle aura quelque chose à vous dire. C’est un tableau représentant l’humanité sur tous ses côtés. Il lui est impossible toutefois de combler tous les désirs, de satisfaire tous les goûts.

Il en est de même de ce que nous voyons dans la nature, ce qui pour l’un est un sujet d’ennui est pour l’autre l’objet d’une méditation salutaire….

Nous devons vivre pour la vérité, chercher la vérité…. La mission de la presse est noble, malgré les difficultés qu’elle rencontre. »

[English translation]

« The press represents school and a platform…. Each day, it gives either a moral or a historical lesson. It speaks to us about a country, its inhabitants and their customs. At times, its mission is as delicate as it is difficult. Like history, it must relate the facts without wounding susceptibilities. However, it must speak. It is necessary for events to run their course. The press can do nothing but help the reader separate the wheat from the chaff…. It must be untainted.

I have also said that it represents a platform. It is actually a silent orator who, by the pen, makes itself heard throughout the entire world….

Time somewhat dissipates the words of school. But, as if blown by the wind, the ideas sown by the press do not so quickly disappear….

The press, ladies and gentlemen, has become an indispensable guide. Without it we find ourselves in darkness. The enemy is at our door and we are unaware….

The press… is the life of the people just as it is the life of trade. People live together by exchanging products and services. But they live even more fully by exchanging ideas.

The press establishes a connection with people we do not know and, does not light spring from bringing ideas face-to-face? I would go even further. The press is a moralizing agent. It exalts value and weakens evil…. It is the people’s friend as well as the most necessary ingredient of civilization and of the world’s material and intellectual progress.

Today it speaks to you about heroic actions, tomorrow perhaps about more somber things. But it will always have something to tell you. It is a tableau representing all facets of humanity. However, it is impossible for it to fulfil all desires and to satisfy all tastes.

We see the same in nature. What is, for one, a subject of boredom is, for another, one for salutary meditation…..

We must live for truth, search for truth….The mission of the press is noble despite the difficulties encountered.”