Pick of the week, April 12: Mrs. Booth’s promptbook

What do you think of when you see the name “Booth” on the cover of a 19th-century U.S. play?  Does the name “John Wilkes Booth” come to mind, perhaps?  I’ve been cataloging just such an item, a promptbook of the 1859 play The Octaroon. Right at the top of the cover, handwritten in ink, is … Read more

Pick of the week, March 8: Stereo view of Memorial Chapel, 1893

As I was refiling some photographs, I came across this stereograph taken of Memorial Chapel in 1893. I’m afraid I don’t know what the event is. These cards are also called a steropticans, stereograms, or stereo views. When you look at them through a stereograph viewer (shown below), the two images merge into one 3-D … Read more

Pick of the week, March 1: Charles Church’s class album, 1864

A reader was interested in class albums, including this one that belonged to Charles Washburn Church, Class of 1864. In the 19th century, before there were college yearbooks, Wesleyan students assembled albums and selected the photographs they wished to include. At first, the albums consisted of portraits, but in the 1870s and 1880s, photographs of … Read more

Pick of the week, Jan. 25: Indian Hill Cemetery map, 1850

An association for the establishment of a rural cemetery in Middletown was organzied on July 3, 1850. It purchased property known as Indian Hill. The association charged Dr. Horatio Stone with laying out the grounds. The cemetery was dedicated on Sept. 30, 1850, and among the participants were the mayor, other city officials, clergymen, prominent … Read more

The Blizzard of 1888

The Great Blizzard of 1888 is legendary throughout New England, and it remains the benchmark by which all subsequent storms have been measured, including the one that will probably be known as the Blizzard of 2013.  Paralyzing the East Coast from the Canadian Maritime Provinces to the Chesapeake Bay from March 11 to 14, the … Read more

Pick of the week, Oct. 26: Insuring the schooner, Resolution, 1803

Our pick of the week is this 1803 insurance contract covering the schooner Resolution. A patron was interested in Benjamin Williams, then-president of the Middletown Insurance Co. At the time this document was signed, Middletown had a thriving seaport—it was one of the largest ports on the east coast—although in just a few decades, due … Read more