Abby Epplett, Historian

Back in September 2023, I had a history adventure in Amesbury, MA and neighboring Portsmouth, NH. During my first two major stops, I visited Historic New England’s Rocky Hill Meeting House and Lowell’s Boat Shop . For my third major stop, I toured the Mary Baker Eddy Historic House in Amesbury , which served as her temporary residence in 1868 and 1870. This was my third historical experience involving Eddy, founder of the Church of Christian Science. My visit to the “How Do You See the World?” Experience & Mapparium at the Christian Science Plaza in Boston, MA back in May 2022 was my first post to the blog , and I visited a pair of her homes in Lynn and Swampscott, MA in September 2022 . Unlike many of the house tours that I take, this focused not on architecture, decor, or a community but the life and philosophy of a single person. Constructed in 1780, the house was home to the Bagley family by the 1860s. The current restoration of the house, which ...

After much research and debate, I am debuting the first creative project to appear on Abby Epplett, Historian . While my regular posts on museums, webinars, and reviews will continue to appear on the blog, I’ll be adding new materials that tap into my other interests — art, music, literature, film — while keeping history at the forefront. Posts will orbit around a hypothetical television series tentatively called Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical . I decided to base the project on the publications of linguistics professor J.R.R. Tolkien  because of its unusual duality of the original books being considered of high academic merit versus its continued popularity as lucrative intellectual property (IP) in popular culture. A Note on IP, Copyright, and Fair Use While I am not a lawyer, I have a significant amount of knowledge regarding copyright law, fair use, and the public domain particularly relating to museums, historical artifacts, and digital reproduction. If...

In September 2023, I had a three-day adventure in Amesbury, MA and Portsmouth, NH. After my first major stop at Rocky Hill Meeting House , I went down the street to Lowell’s Boat Shop , the oldest working boat shop in America and in operation since 1793. Located over the Merrimack River, the bright red building has been a National Historic Landmark since 1990. Lowell’s Boat Shop receives its name from the Lowell family who joined the dominant boat building industry in the early 18 th century. Boat builder Gideon Lowell arrived in Amesbury from Newbury in 1718, while his nephew, Simeon Lowell , started the official business with his sons Stephen and Benjamin . Simeon's grandson, Hiram Lowell , constructed the current buildings in 1860 during the American Civil War when the area was considered to be part of Salisbury rather than Amesbury. After Hiram retired, his son Frederick Elmore Lowell ran the shop. The Lowell family added building addition...

In September 2023, I went on another long weekend adventure to northeastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. My first major stop was Rocky Hill Meeting House , a church turned museum owned by Historic New England (HNE) This is the only building out of the thirty-eight HNE properties that was never residential. Rocky Hill Meeting House was built with a vision in mind: creating a Congregationalist church in preparation for the population boom that was sure to come. A smaller meeting house had stood near the site since 1716, but the parishioners wanted bigger and better things. Reverend Samuel Webster had pastored the church since 1741 and dedicated his entire career to this one church community. He had already led the church for forty-four years when he proposed a new building for the coming revival. During construction in 1785, only two years after the end of the American Revolutionary War, this property was part of Salisbury, MA, as modern Am...