Quincy History

Quincy~ Massachusetts Quincy Historical Society Sprinq, 1986

Some Famous Quincy Sculptors

by H. Hobart Holly

with contributions from Evelyn S. Kilbourn

on the Kitsons, Edmund Quincy on

Richard B. Brooks, and Gerald T. Horrigan

on himself mid his father.

It was granite from Quincy's quarries that brought fame to what became known as The Granite City; but the granite industry encompassed more than just the quarries. With the quarrying industry came the stone-cutting industry which not only contributed to the fame but has lasted after the quarrying operations have ceased. From the early days the cutters worked with imported as well · as local stone, using the material best suited for a particular application. The sto~e-cutting industry was centered principally in South Quincy with some shops in West Quincy and elsewhere, but largely separate from the quarries. The cutters were a distinct trade with their own union which until recently had its national headquarters in Quincy. The Quincy cutters were among the most skilled in the world, and some possessed talents not available elsewhere.

The story is told of a prominent Quincy resident who wanted the very finest cemetery monument for his family, so he went to the famous Tiffany Studios of New York for the work. He was pleased with the design submitted and later asked if he might observe the fashioning in progress. "Quite easily, Sir, it is being cut in Quincy."

From the ranks of these highly skilled stone cutters some sculptors emerged. Equally important were the sculptors who · came here because of demand for their

Statue of Colonel Thomas Cass, designed by Richard Brooks, located in the Boston Public Garden.

creative art in association with the granite industry. The work of the sculptors has added an important page in Quincy's history; a page that has been largely forgotten.

In their time these sculptors were highly regarded in Quincy and their work well known locally. Their commissions, whether executed here or elsewhere, their exhibitions and their career activities were well covered in the local press, frequently on the front page. Their works have passed the test of time, but the recognition of the artists in their town has diminished.

Richard Edwin Brooks 1865-1919

Richard E. Brooks was born in Braintree, the son of John Brooks, a native of England and a spinner by trade . The nearby granite industry

in Quincy undoubtedly influenced the development of his artistic talents and his choice of a profession. In his early years, he carved and modelled panels in terracotta for the exterior of buildings and private homes from designs by his first teacher, T. H. Bartlett. After he had worked as an apprentice he opened his own business specializing in commercial sculpture .

His first important commiSSion was for a bust of Governor William E. Russell of Massachusetts. Its success prompted him to go to Paris where his talent developed rapidly under the guidance of Aube' and Injalbert. Those were the days when the Symbolist Movement, the conveyance of impressions by suggestion rather than realism, launched by a group of French artists and writers was at its height. Brooks' statue Le Chant de la Vague reflected this influence, both mysterious and metaphysical. This graceful nude by the sea was cited for Honorable Mention in the Paris Salon of 1895.

One of Brooks' most famous works was the result of the efforts and art appreciation of Josiah Quincy, father of Edmund and third Boston Mayor of the name, and the Art Commission that he created. The statue of Col. Thomas Cass in the Public Garden was dedicated in 1899. Every detail of its surface is finished to perfection. The volumes and proportions, from the tilt of the hat to the disengaged left leg, show complete relaxation. This work was awarded a Gold Medal at the Paris

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Exposition ot 1900 and a Gold Medal at an exhibition the following year that included an Art Nouveau candlestick and a necklace designed by Brooks. He received a Silver Medal at San Francisco's Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915.

From 1899 to 1905 Richard Brooks lived and worked in Quincy with his address at 36 and then 110 School Street. Most of his working life, however, he spent in France, . which proved a strong influence on his work. His work excelled in that subtlety of expression and lightness of touch so frequently found in the best French art. He made a portrait bust of the principal subject of Millet's famous painting The Angelus, not as the young woman of the painting but as the old, old woman known in her locality as "Mere Adele," her face deeply lined and weathered by the struggle of a peasant to gain a livelihood from the land of France. His Le Chant de la Vague, already mentioned, and The Bather were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York which recently had a special exhibit of his works.

Among his famous statues are ones of John Hanson and Charles Carroll of Carrollton in the Capitol in Washington. D.C.; William H. Seward and John H. McGraw in Seattle; Col. Wadsworth of the Athenaeum that bears his name; John Haynes; and Roger Ludlow in Hartford. His bronze bas-relief of E. F. Andrews. the school's first principal. is at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington.

Edmund Quincy vividly recalls Richard Brooks. who made medallions of his grandfather, his father and himself which now hang in the Josiah Quincy House in Wollaston. Young Edmund was in bed with the measles and had to sit motionless while Mr. Brooks strained his eyes in the darkened room to sketch the profile for the medallion. Mr. Brooks also did a medallion of William Royall Tyler. Headmaster of Adams Academy.

Henry Hudson Kitson 1865-1947

Mr. Kitson was born in Huddersfield, England, and educated at Oxford and L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He studied under Bonnaissieux in Paris. Henry Kitson served for a year in the Roumanian army and- rose to the rank of colonel. He executed busts of King Carol and Queen Elizabeth of Roumania and was knighted by the Ki in 1902.

Statue of Admiral Farragut designed by Henry Kitson. located in Marine Pork. South Boston.

Mr. Kitson· had a studio in Boston from 1886 to 1904 when he moved to Quincy and had his studio in the barn of his home on Park Lane. nOw Southern Artery. In 1893 he married. in Boston. Theo Alice Ruggles of Brookline, who had been his student and already an accomplished sculptor. The Kitsons separated around 1909 but he continued to be listed as a sculptor at the Quincy address until 1915 when his family moved to Sherborn, Massachusetts and he to Tyringham in the western part of the state. In Tyringham Mr. Kitson continued his sculpture, working on a clay model of St. Francis of Assisi the day before his death in 1947.

The best known of Mr. Kitson's works in this area are the Minute Man at Lexington, The Pilgrim Maid in Plymouth, and the Admiral Farragut in South Boston. In Boston are his Nathaniel P. Banks on the State House grounds, Robert Burns in the Back Bay Fens, and the Patrick A. Collins monument on Commonwealth Avenue in which Mrs. Kitson collaborated. At Vicksburg, Mississippi, he executed, with Mrs. Kitson, the statue of Confederate General Stephen Lee. the Minnesota monument, and supervised the erection of the Massachusetts monument. Among his other statues are Sir Richard Saltonstall at Watertown, Roger Conant at Salem, the Continental soldier at Washington's Headquarters at Newburgh, N.Y. and in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Louis C. Elson, Henry B. Endicott, President McKinley, General Tilghman, Admiral Selfridge, and General Martin I. Smith. Among the busts he

. executed were those of James Bryce and Walt Whitman. Before his death he had just completed the plaster cast of a bust of Mark Hopkins for Williams College. Mr. Kitson created a number of works on religious subjects, and his Music of the Sea is at the Museum of Fine Arts. He did not complete the model for a one hundred sixty-five-foothigh bronze statue of Christ that he hoped might go to a Balkan country as a symbol of peace.

Henry Kitson received many honors for his work and was a leading American sculptor over his long career. He is listed in Who's Who in American Art.

Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson 1871-1932

Theo Alice Ruggles was born in Brookline, the daughter'of Cyrus W. Ruggles who was for many years the postmaster of that town. She attended the public schools and early showed an interest in art that was encouraged by her family. Her modeling, carving and ice sculpture

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Spring, 1986 - QUINCY mSTORY - Paqe Three ·

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as a teenager attracted attent ion to her talent including that of the noted sculptor Henry H. Kitson, who became her mentor and in 1893 her husband . In Paris under Mr. Kitson's guidance she studied under the painter Pascal and the sculptor Bouvent. In 1889, when only eighteen years old, she exhibited her sculpture at the Paris Exposition, receiving honorable mention . The following year she exhibited at the Paris Salon and received a similar award, the first American woman to gain that distinction.

After their marriage, the Kitsons made their home in Boston and had a studio there together. In 1904 they moved to Quincy and lived in a large house on Park Lane, now Southern Artery near Black's Creek. As a neighbor and girlhood friend of the younger daughter, one of the contributors to this paper, Mrs. Kilbourn, well remembers Mrs . Kitson. The studio where many notable works were executed was in the large barn, and strictly off limits to young visitors. The barn also housed many animals including a magnificent black stallion named Commander which Mrs. Kitson used as a model for her equestrian statues. Mrs. Kitson was an active member of the Quincy Women's Club where she chaired the Art Committee and headed other activities. She was the designer of the club's seal. The Kitsons s~parated around 1909. Around 1915 Mrs. Kitson moved from Quincy to Sherborn and later to Framingham where she lived until her death.

Mrs. Kitson produced many works including over fifty public monuments. Probably best known to Quincy area residents are the Hingham war memorial, the impressive equestrian "Victory" at the Harbor, and the Kosiusko statue in the Public Garden in Boston. Mr. and Mrs. Kitson together did the Patrick A. Collins monument on Commonwealth Avenue.

One of Mrs. Kitson's earliest works was the result of her exhibit at the Chicago Exposition of 1893.

The w 0 men 0 f M i chi g an Theo A. Ru~gles Kitson won commissioned two works symbolic many honors an1 recognition ?f.her of the oaks and pines of that state. talents as a sculptor. She exhIbIted These are now in the Detroit widely and received medals at major Museum of Fine Arts. Another early expositions. Hers was a significant work was the statue of the contribution toward making the Revoluntionary War hero Esek . name Kitson known nationally for Hopkins in Providence. Of her Civil sculptural excellence. War memorials the best known are Bruce Wilder Saville at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Her 1893-1939 "Volunteer" is the feature of the Bruce Saville was born in Quincy Massachusetts monument. She of an old Quincy family, grew up in executed the Iowa monument and the Granite City, and received collaborated with Mr. Kitson on the much of his education here. He was statue of Confederate General the son of George G. Saville and the Stephen Lee . She did the brother of Clark Saville who was monument for Newburyport, president of the Quincy Historical "Mother Bickerdyke" the Civil War Society 1952-1955. After graduation nurse at Galesburg, Spanish War from Quincy High School, he memorials at Minneapolis and studied at the Boston Normal Art Schenectady, the Minuteman at School with Cyrus E. Dallin, the Framingham, and the Wounded noted sculptor, as his mentor. After Color Sergeant for Topsfield. The a short period of study at the "Hiker" is at Arlington National Museum of Fine Arts, he spent five Cemetery, and her statue of Lincoln years in the Quincy studio of Theo in Providence. A. Kitson. His art career was then

Mrs. Kitson executed many interrupted by service in World War portrait busts and reliefs . She I, an experience which undoubtedly created an Adams medallion of gave him true feeling for the war copper from the dome of the First memorials· that he would create . . Parish Church. She designed a His first significant work was a memorial tablet to "SCotty," the .bust of his father. This was followed former Boston newsboy who was in 1916 by a bust of Nathan Haskell killed in World War I. At the time of Dole, the author, which drew high her death she was working on a bust praise for its artistic merit. He also of Thomas A Friison . did a bust of Lt. Joseph T. Evans,

USN, and the model for a heroic statue of John Hancock for the City of Quincy, p work that was never accomplished. The next year he completed a bust of Larz Anderson.

After his war service, Saville returned to his studio in 1919. There he created the American trophy for the James Gordon Bennett balloon

, race, completed the Dole bust ini bronze, and was commissioned by! ~eemo~=t~OO~~i~~;ed toS~~~~:~! : "The Infantryman." An exhibition i included "Boy with Fish," a nude \I)

" study that received favorable ~

\I) comment, and a sketch for a Quincy1 High School memorial bas relief. In

1921 he executed, for Westfield, a war memorial that was unusual in that it honored a regiment.

In 1921 Bruce Saville was appointed Head of the DepartmentStatue of Kosciusko, designed by Theo

Alice Kitson, located in the Boston of Art at Ohio State University at Public Garden. (;onClnueu on ,.-age rour

"The Doughboy," designed by Bruce Saville and located in front of the Adams Academy Building, Quincy, Mass.

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Columbus, Ohio, a high tribute to the artistic abilities of the 28-yearold sculptor. While there, he executed the imposing war memorial in Columbus. The central figure was the statue of a young soldier with the flush of a victor and the dignity of America. In 1925, the City of Quincy chose this figure for its memorial "To the Men of Quincy who Served in the World War." "The Doughboy" now stands in front of the Adams Academy building. Its sculptor,· Bruce Saville, is one of those it commemorates. He submitted a model for a Robert Burns Statue in Quincy, but it was not accepted. In 1924 he was honored by election to the National Sculptors Society.

In 1925 Saville returned to Boston to devote his full time to exhibition work . Among his well -known works were the Goddard Memorial for Worcester, the Gen. Leonard

Wood memorial for the Boston City Hospital, portrait sculptures of Gen. Clarence R. Edwards and Col. Osbourne, a fountain with five figures for Detroit, Michigan to commemorate aviation achievement, war memorials for Gardner, Massachusetts and for Glens Falls, New York, and the Wayne Monument for Toledo. Mr. Saville did the plaques on the obelisks at the Granite Railway Incline in West Quincy. The original bronzes were stolen and replaced by granite plaques of the same design.

In 1932 Bruce Saville moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico for his health and to study the Indian in his native habitat. There he worked on a historical memorial for the National Cemetery in Santa Fe. It included a bas relief seventeen feet long by nine feet high on the region's history and eight historical statues. While planning to return to Boston, he died of influenza at Santa Fe on

February 27, 1939, in his for ty-sixth year .

John Horrigan 1864-1939

John Horrigan was born in the small town of Fayston, Vermont where he received a rudimentary education in the village school. The family moved to Fairlee , Vermont where he engaged in mining and stone cutting with Cornish workers. From the age of ten, John Horrigan's interest was sculpture, and he studied this subject in the spare time from his job. After about two years he took up modeling. In 1887 Horrigan came to South Quincy where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. His only education beyond the Fayston village school was in Quincy evenings schools and extensive reading in his home. John Horrigan married Helen J. Sullivan, a Quincy school teacher . He secured employment in the cutting and sculptoring works of Frederick

. Barnicoat where ' Mr. Barnicoat, a .l!

co. . Cornishman, introduced him tot working in clay and casting in ;. plaster. Mr. Horrigan received

helpful advice from Richard E. Brooks who had just returned from his art studies in Paris. His first work in real clay modeling was for busts of John Boyle O'Reilly, whom he greatly admired after reading his biography. He made a portrait from life of Patrick Donahue, then editor and owner of The Boston Pilot, now the Boston Archdiocesan paper.

John Horrigan's experience as a stone cutter and the mastery of that art had a great influence on his career as a sculptor. He admire

Continued from Page Four I executed in 1916. DesigneH by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the

The Titanic Monument located in Washington, D.C. and designed by John Horrigan.

figure is thirteen feet high and twelve feet , eight inches across the outstretched arms. It stands on a pedestal about fifteen feet high made by the Henry C. Smalley Granite Company of Quincy. He also sculpted the huge statue of "The Crusader" designed by Loredo Taft. It stands in Chicago, a memorial to Victor Lawson, late editor of The Chicago News. When the Myles Standish Monument in Duxbury was severely damaged by lightning, Mr. Horrigan was selected to execute a restored statue in 1930 using some granite from Swingle's Quarry in West Quincy.

In 1917 his bronze figure for the Soldiers Monument in Holbrook drew high praise, as did the bronze figure of a soldier at Valley Forge erected by the State of New Jersey. Two statues at St. Joseph's Academy in Brighton were considered fine examples of religious art. Among many portraits and portrait reliefs were statues of George Goodall at Sanford, Maine and Judge Nolan and Dr. McDonald in New York. He executed in both bronze and granite many Civil War statues, both Union and

Spring, 1986 - Q-VINCY HISTORY - Page Five

War statue at Denmark Maine and the statue of St. John th~ Evangelist in the Holyrood Cemetery.

Of Mr. Horrigan's many works, probably the best known to Quincy people is the Robert Burns statue of 1923 now located at the corner of Granite Street and Burgin Parkway. He was cutting a statue designed by his son Gerald T. Horrigan when it was destroyed by a fire in his shop. He cut the present statue to a somewhat modified design , also by his son.

In March of 1916 the Quincy Patriot-Ledger initiated a weekly

series 6n the lives of some promineht and interesting men of Quincy. The subject of the first article was John Horrigan.

Gerald T. Horrigan 1903

Gerald Horrigan was born and grew up in South Quincy when stone cutting were dominant factors there. His appreciation of granite was inborn, and his first instructor in sculpture was his famous fat her , John Horrigan. After gradua tion from high school, Gerald Horrigan studied from 1921 to 1925 on scholarships at the Museum of Fine

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Confederate, and also World War I Statue of Robert Burns, designed by Gerald Horrigan and located at the corner of figures. John Horrigan did the Civil Burgin Parkway and Granite Street, Quincy, Mass .

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Arts in DU~ll,.;... .Ilere he studied under Charles Grady and Frederick W. Allen. During this period he e xecuted the World War Imemorial for Hull, the design of the Robert Burns statue in Quincy that was cut by his father, and a number of portrait busts and portrait reliefs. He later did the sculpture for the World Wa r 1 memorial for Winthrop.

In 1927, the younger Mr. Horrigan went to Europe for four years of study, work and travel. While he spe nt most of his time in Paris, he also vis ited Italy and Spain. He was sent to Spain by Andrew O'Connor to aid in construction of the ' heroic monument at Palos overlooking the harbor from which Columbus sailed in 1492 and commemora t ing that event. Designed by Ge rtrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the sixty-foot symbolic figure stands on a forty·foot base. At his studio in Paris. he executed a number of works including figures in marble. He was impressed with the European use of granr(e' for sculpture and structures, including polished granite .

On his return to Quincy he received a commission from Monsignor Richard Haberlin for a family memorial, a Gothic screen with a Madonna and Child figure. He also did a life-size statue of John Cifrino holding the Christ Child in one arm and extending a loaf of bread in charity with the other. Mr. Cifrino, who was noted for giving bread for charities, came to Quincy to pose for the head.

In 1933, as Chairman of the Sculptural Division of the Quincy Arts League. Gerald Horrigan was instrumental in arranging an outstanding exhibition in the Granite Trust Company building and sponsored by Delcevare King, to which many prominent sculptors contributed. He showed "Adrienne," "Joseph Vincent Moreschi" and "Unfinished Nude." The latter in marble, from a sketch he made in rans, was a feature of the show tor its beauty, grace and firmness of line . A contest to name the statue

was a novel event. Cyrus Dallin's famous "Massasoit" was one of two pieces by the noted sculptor.

.The younger Mr. Horrigan executed many religious· and memorial works. In 1957 he modeled a figure of Joan of Arc for Bishop Wright at St. Paul's Cathedral in Worcester. For memorials he modeled figures such as the Ascension; angels and sculpt~ crosses; the bronze doors · for the CoClU{i mausoleum in Westerley, Rhode--1slanq; · the doughboy for the Pawtucket, Rhode Island World War I monument; the figure on the Boston Policemen's monument; a fireman's figure for a .New· York State monument; and the eagle on Quincy's Viet Nam monument.

Among Mr. Horrigan's many portraits were full length figures of Private Lee in North Carolina and one of the Mayor of Danville, Virginia; a bronze female portrait in Forest Hills Cemetery; and portrait reliefs of Arthur "foote for Mr. Foote's widow, and one of Thomas J. Watson for a new IBM building in Endicott, New York. /-'

Gerald T. Horrigan was the son of a famous father who achieved prominence in his father's field by his own talents.

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Bas-relief. designed by ·Joseph Coletti. on the entrance to the Thomas Crane Library. Quincy, Mass.

Joseph A. Coletti 1898-1973

Joseph A. Coletti ~tands as one of America's foremost sculptors. His work i represented in museums here ~nd abroad, in many churches and p'ublic buildings, in statues, busts and 'medallions that won him many honors.

Born in San Donato, Italy, Mr. Coletti came to Quincy with his family at the ,age of two years..His father was engaged in the granite industry and the young Coletti worked for a time as a tool sharpener. After completing his studies in the Quincy Public Schools, he attended the Massachusetts School of Art an~_ apprenticed himself to the sculptor John Evans. Joseph Coletti worked with John Singer Sargent as the famous artist's only pupil. Nter preparatory work at Northeastern University, he entered Harvard from which he was graduated in 1923. He then received two traveling fellowships in fine arts from Harvard. He returned to this country in 1926 and established his .studio in Boston.

Mr. Coletti is probably best known for his architectural sculpture. When working with John Singer Sargent he assisted him with the sculptured ceiling at the Boston

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~~onlinued from Page Six

Public Library and the rotunda of the Museum 01 tine Arts. His first commission after returning from Europe was the sculpture for the chapel of St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island, consisting ' of sixty·three sculptured pieces. This was followed by the Archibald Cary Coolidge memorial at Harvard's Widener Library, a tympanum for the chapel of Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, and the narthex of the Harvard World War I Memorial Chapel. He executed the sculpture for the north transept portal at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. His Farmers and Geese panel is in the Mansfield Post O{fice. Well known are his panels Riuerters and Granite, and the Cranes for the pediment at the Thomas Crane Public Library in Quincy.

His notable statues include the Ferdinand Gagnon monument in Manchester, N.H.; S1. Joseph statue at St. Joseph's Seminary in North Easton; the thirty,foot high Mourning Victory at ~. ~-Salem; General Logan at the Airport; and

~en. David I. Walsh on the Esplanade in Boston. His monument to the Rev. Michael Joseph McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, dedicated in 1956 in Waterbury, Connecticut, has received special acclaim. His portrait busts include John Nicholas Brown, Ralph Adams Cram, Alan Nevins, John DeFerrari, and Dr. George Berry.

Mr. Coletti created many medallions and medals that received wide recognition: the Ignace Paderewski medallion in Poland, Samuel Eliot Morison that is in the Vatican, the seventh centennial medallion for the Dante Society of ' America, the two hundredth anniversary · of the Boston Tea Party, the Boston tercentennial, and The Boston Globe centennial. He designed the Edward W. Bok medal for the Harvard Advertising awards, the Harvard Alumni Association medal, the Harvard Glee Club medal, the Eugene Dodd medal for the Harvard Architectural School, 'and the Vermont Academy medal.

Joseph Coletti's honors were many and for varied accomplish· ments. In 1948 he was elected an

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Honorary Membe r of the Har vard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1959 his statue of St. George was placed 'on permanent exhibition in the National Gallery of Modern Art in the Pitti Palace at Florence, Italy the first American so honored. Mr. Coletti served for six years as Chairman of the Massachusetts Art Commission. He was recognized not only for the works of art that he created but as a master of his art of sculpture. A handsome book on The Sculpture of Joseph Coletti by Alan Priest was published in 1968. ....

(To the aboue biographies could be added the names of many other Quincy sculptors who haue created notable works of art. Anthony DiBona was an artist of great promise who died before his potential could be realized. Richard Recchia produced many notable works in his Boston and Rockport studios. ,Carl Andre has gained international note for both painting and sculpture. EdYJard P. Monti, using innouatiue cutting techniques, sculptsjigures of Quincy granite in his South Quincy shop thus continuing the Quincy tradition in the field of sculpture.)

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Bas·re/ief, designed by Joseph Coletti, on the entrance to the Thomas Crane Library, Quincy, Mass.

Page Eight - QUINCY HISTORr - Spring, 1986

A Freeman

contributed by H. Hobart Holly

Everyone who has traced his family back to an early settler has seen the expression "made a Freeman" with a date, many without knowing the meaning of the honor confirmed on his ancestor. Essentially , it was an oath of allegiance that gave to a man the right to vote and to hold public office. "The Oath of Freeman" adopted by the General Court of Massachusetts on May 14, 1634 reads as follows:

"I, being, by God's providence, an inhabitant and ffreeman within the jurisdiccion of this comonweale , doe freely acknowledge my selfe to be subject to the govermt thereof, and therefore doe heere sweare, by the greate and dreadfull name of the everlyveing God, that I wilbe true and faithfull to the same, and will accordingly yeilde assistance and support thereunto, with my pson a nd estate, as in equity I am bound ,

ADAMS ACADEMY Isn

QUINCY HISTORY Published by the Quincy Historical Society at Adanis~Academy, 8 Adams Street, Quincy, Massachusetts 02169, telephone 773·1144.

David Day President

Dr. James Cameron and Daniel Johnson Editors

The Quincy Historical Society, incorporated November 16, 1893, maintains the Adams Academy Building as a museum, library, visitor infonnation center and place of meeting. The purposes of the Society are: to represent historical interests in the community, to preserve materials and infor· mation related to Quincy history through exhibits, programs and eduJ:;ationai exhibits, and to publish -materials of historical significance .

Bas-relief, designed by Joseph Coletti, on the entrance to the Thomas Crane Library, Quincy, Mass.

and will also truely indeavr to maintaine and preserve all the libertyes and privilidges thereof, submitting my selfe to the wholesome lawes and orders made and established by the same; and furthr that I will not plott nor practise any evill against it, nor consent to any that shall soe doe, but will timely discover and reveale the same to lawfull aucthority nowe here estftblished, for the speedy preventing thereof.

Two Calendars '- Two Dates

contributed by H. Hobart Holly The 250th commemoration of the

birth of John Adams found many people confused that the record shows the birth date as October 19, 1735, while the anniversary of that birth falls on Octob~r 30, 1985. The answer is a change in the calendar .

Prior to 1752 the British Colonies in North America used the Julian Calendar'that was instituted in 46 BC. The years that followed were figured, and still are, as 365 l1.t days whereas the actual day is slightly less than that. As a result, over the years that the Julian Calendar was in use, an error of 11 days accumulated. When the change was made to the Gregorian Calendar, it was decided to correct the error by dropping 11 days. Accordingly, September 3, 1752, old style, became September 14, 1752 new

"Moreover, I doe solemnly bynde myselfe, in the sight of God, that when I shalbe called to give my voice touching any matter of this state, wherein ffreeman are to deale , I will give my vote and suffrage, as I shall judge, inmy owne conscience may best conduce and tend to the publique weale of the body, without respect of p(er)sons, or favor of any man .

"Soe helpe mee God, in the Lord Jesus Christ."

style . Thus a person born on September 2, 1752 would have celebrated his two days old birthday on September 15th new style, and everyone older celebrated his birthday anniversary 11 days later according to the new calendar than by the old.

A second change that took place when the Gregorian Calendar was adopted has also caused some confusion. Under the Julian Calendar the year began in March, actually March 25th. Thus January 1639 followed December 1639. · When old records referred to the 4th day of the 5th month, the date was July 4th . To alleviate confusion , January, February, and March dates through the 24th are written with both the Julian and Gregorian year shown ; for example, January 25, 1639/40, or February 15, 1735/ 6.

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