Quick History Stops: New Bedford, MA
Last Saturday — June 15, 2024 — I went on a history adventure in New Bedford, MA. Between my three major stops of New Bedford Art Museum, the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum, and Fort Taber Park, I made several quick history stops around the city. Highlights included neoclassical architecture, memorials, repurposed factories, and flood prevention infrastructure.
The art museum was located in the center of the city, an area which included a library, town hall, post office, a church, and statues. The Main Branch of the New Bedford Free Public Library is currently housed in a neoclassical building that originally served as the city hall. The building had burned in 1906 and was reconstructed by 1908, with a date carved into the cornerstone. Today, the library contains “the third largest collection worldwide of American Whaling materials” according to the official website.
The library as an organization was established in 1852, only a few months after the Massachusetts legislature passed a new law allowing cities and towns to make their own public libraries. Contents from this first iteration of the library came from the New Bedford Social Library, a fee-based organization, much like the original forms of Whitinsville Social Library, Amesbury Public Library, Yarmouth Port Library, Newburyport Public Library, and Portsmouth Athenaeum; and in contrast to other libraries I have turned into quick history stops, such as Stockbridge Library Museum & Archives and Uxbridge Free Public Library. I seem to quickly be turning into a New England library history expert.
On the lawn of the library are a pair of statues. To the right is “A Dead Whale or a Stove Boat” depicting a whaler sitting in his boat with a harpoon to spear a whale. The phrase was common in New Bedford during the Golden Age of Whaling and survives in “Chapter XXXVI: The Quarter-Deck” of Moby Dick by Herman Melville. To the left is a statue for Lewis Temple, an African American inventor who made improvements to the whaling harpoon. Across the street from the library is current City Hall, built in 1856 to be the library but switched after the 1906 fire. This building was expanded for six years after the fire, with the project ending in 1912, four years after the original town hall was restored and became the library. Next to this building is a plaque commemorating abolitionist Frederick Douglass who lived in the city with his wife and their young family. Also in the area are First Baptist Church, a classic white New England church constructed in 1829 and the congregation of Lt. Henry Martyn Robert who created Robert’s Rules of Order; and a very fancy post office modeled after the United States General Post Office for Manhattan, also called the James A. Farley Building.
I took a pair of leisurely walks on The Blue Lane, a pathway along the water. The two current sections are HarborWalk and CoveWalk, with RiverWalk expected to open some time in the future. These walks are along the New Bedford Hurricane Protection Barrier run by the Army Corp of Engineers to save the city from flooding. After terrible flooding in September 1938 and August 1954, the city received federal funding for this system, which was built between 1962 and 1966. The project cost $18.6 million in mid 1960s dollars, which would be ten times that amount today. I was fascinated by the gates located along the roadway, which close during a flood warning. On the path was a mosaic with the names of two hurricanes whose floods were deterred by the system: Gloria in September 1985 and Bob in August 1991.
Along the HarborWalk was a memorial to The Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick, an Irish American cultural organization. A beautiful stone Celtic cross stood between the flags of Ireland and the United States, while an informational sign explained the history of Ireland and its people. I especially liked the poem engraved on the side of the pedestal. Also on this section of the walk was another view of Butler Flats Light Station, an adorable sparkplug lighthouse built in 1898 that has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1987.
New Bedford was once the home of many large, red brick textile mills, and the buildings now serve different purposes. Near CoveWalk is Kilburn Mill, which built in 1903 and expanded in 1910. Today, the building houses New Bedford Antiques at the Cove, rooftop performance center, studio spaces, and a venue for weddings and proms. New Bedford has seen a lot of changes in its time as a city, from its founding by Quakers, its growth into the whaling capital of the world, its shift to the textile industry during the Industrial Revolution, and its current reinvention as a place for arts, history, and outdoor creation. I look forward to seeing what else New Bedford has in store in the coming years.
