Abby Epplett, Historian

During a long weekend in late May and early June, I visited Philadelphia, PA to see historic sites and watch a professional track & field meet. This is my third post about Independence National Historical Park , a part of the United States National Park System (NPS) that focuses on the American Revolutionary War. During this post, I will describe Franklin Court where the house of Benjamin Franklin once stood, art found throughout the park, and a relaxing garden.

During a long weekend in late May and early June, I visited Philadelphia, PA to see historic sites and watch a professional track & field meet. This is my second post about Independence National Historical Park , a part of the United States National Park System (NPS) that focuses on the American Revolutionary War. While I inevitably saw the outside of Independence Hall every day during my trip, I took a special tour inside the building on the first day. This birthplace of American democracy has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966 and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 .

During a long weekend in late May and early June, I visited Philadelphia, PA to see historic sites and watch a professional track & field meet. This was my third visit to the city but the first time I was able to document the trip thoroughly. For the next few weeks, I will share a fraction of the thousands of photos I took during the trip and describe the history I learned there. The first miniseries within the series focuses on Independence National Historical Park , a part of the United States National Park System (NPS) that focuses on the American Revolutionary War. The famously cracked Liberty Bell and red brick Carpenters’ Hall were two of my earliest stops in the park.

If you were a child in the late 19 th through early 20 th century in England, the Long-Expected Party would be an ideal celebration. For character references, consider the interests of the orphans in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett for the early part of the period, and the Pevensie children in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis for the later part of the period. The main difference between The Lord of the Rings and these other books is that Tolkien intended his work to be for adults but appropriate for children, perhaps allowing his older readers to reminisce about a happy childhood. Ever-youthful Bilbo may stand in for an energetic grandfather or uncle who was quick to tell jokes and generous with his gift giving. The party scene references fun and noisy things that hobbits and children like, including party toys, fireworks, and even an early railroad. This eclectic collection reminds historically minded readers that the Shire was inspired by late Victori...

During my trips to the North Shore several weeks ago, I visited historic sites around Essex County, Massachusetts. I took a tour of important stops in colonial era New England religious history, one of which was Old South Presbyterian Church. This building hosts an active congregation and is the final resting place of evangelist George Whitefield, who requested to be buried beneath the altar. Other nearby places of interest include the house where Whitefield died, the house where abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was born, and a large rock where Whitefield gave a sermon.

This post comes a day earlier than usual, as Friday is American Independence Day, colloquially known as “the Fourth of July”. This is the fourth and final post in my miniseries of quick history stops in Ipswich. For a quick history review, I shared a pair of banks, a post office, murals on a factory building, and a story from the Industrial Revolution in Part 1 . I shared the Riverwalk, a war memorial, the town visitor center, a commercial block, and other historic buildings in Part 2 . I shared the history of three churches, a school building, the library, and informational signage in Part 3. Now I will finish up with several war memorials, an art installation, a very old bridge, public buildings, and a church with interesting tangents in its backstory.

Today, I continue with my miniseries on quick history stops in Ipswich, MA. As a quick history review, last week I shared a pair of banks, a post office, murals on a factory building, and a story from the Industrial Revolution in Part 1 . On Monday, I shared the Riverwalk, a war memorial, the town visitor center, a commercial block, and other historic buildings in Part 2 . I will discuss the history of three churches, a school building, the library, and informational signage in Part 3.

During the early 19 th century, also known as the Regency era in Great Britain, clothing mimicked contemporary events in Europe, including revolutions and building empires. People were inspired by similar events in classical history such as Athenian democracy and the Roman Empire. Northwestern European scholars had long appropriated the history of the Mediterranean as their own past, but this was the first time the mythology had gone mainstream. The beginning of print culture , or the mass production of written documents including books, allowed the noble and merchant classes to own their own copies of The Odyssey and The Iliad , albeit with varying accuracy in translation, while the display of marble statues at public institutions like our old friend the British Museum allowed the general public to see how their favorite heroes may have looked. This interest in the ancient world continues today, as the so-called Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon have been on display in the m...

When I visited Topsfield Town Common District, part of the National Register of Historic Places , I found so many quick history stops that I divided them into three posts: the first on Monday , the second on Wednesday , and the third today. This final post describes the history of the former Methodist church and parsonage, the war memorials, the library, and public art. Once again, I found the book Houses and Buildings of Topsfield, Massachusetts to be helpful in my research.

During two of my trips to the North Shore, I visited South Hamilton, MA. The town historic district is on Bay Road , originally known as Country Road when it was established in 1640 and now also called Route 1A as the first state highway established in Massachusetts. During these quick history stops, I saw a church, a cemetery, historic houses, a mysterious road, and a special sign. This quiet town was a great place to take a relaxing walk, along with many pictures.

On my birthday in 2024, I took a fun and history-filled trip to several locations in central Worcester County. My first stop was the Major Taylor Museum , which commemorates the life of a record-setting bicyclist who called Worcester his home for many years. Just opened in 2021, this gallery on Main Street shares a building with apartments at a range of price points, called Courthouse Lofts , in the former Worcester County Courthouse. Nearby memorials and architecture add to the experience.

A few months ago, I was gifted St. Eustatius Historical Walking Tour Guide , written by archaeologists Gay Soetekouw and Joanna K. Gilmore, and published by the St. Eustatius Historical Foundation in 2007. This tropical island is also known as Statia and located in the Caribbean Sea. While I have no plans to visit in-person in the near future, I did enjoy a rainy Saturday morning exploring on Google Maps while listening to cheerful island music and using the book to learn history.

For this week’s post, I decided to focus on the physical appearances and clothing styles of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, the protagonists of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. As first mentioned in my character study of Elanor Gardner Fairbairn , the costume designs for my characters align to the timeline in the Real World. I used descriptions in the texts as my base and elaborated on these references with historical costumes. I also viewed the artwork created by other fans, including Tolkien himself, to understand how the characters are classically portrayed, and how my portrayal might differ.

On Thursday, April 10 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., I watched the fifth and final Parked at Home webinar of the 2025 season. This is the fourth year of the Parked at Home series of virtual talks hosted by Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BLRV) and other sites in the National Park Service, along with the third year of summaries appearing on my blog. The presentations this year are interpreted into American Sign Language (ASL) by Sherrolyn King. The hour-long webinars will be uploaded to the BlackstoneNPS YouTube channel and available to view at any time. The last installment to this year’s series was Saint Croix Island International Historic Site featuring park ranger Karin Magera.

In September 2024, I visited places and attended programs in Essex National Heritage Area as part of its annual event Trails & Sails . On my second day, I took quick history stops in Danvers and Beverly, MA between visits to Hospital Point Lighthouse ; Historic Beverly’s Cabot House , Balch House , and Hale Farm ; and Central Cemetery in Beverly . I visited the typical historic homes, parks, churches, and public buildings along with a stop at the oldest fruit tree in the United States.

In her MasterClass, U.S. Presidential History and Leadership , award-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin discussed topics surrounding leadership, such as whether leaders are born or made, how emotional intelligence factors into leadership decisions, the ability to help rivals work together, and ways to relax from work. With each topic, she related stories from the lives of her four favorite presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt (TR), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), and Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBR). The course is based on her book, Leadership in Turbulent Times , published by Simon & Schuster in 2018 , which followed the lives of these four presidents, while she won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995 for her biography of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt . Additionally, the 2012 Steven Spielberg film Lincoln was based on her biography, and she conducted a popular “exit interview” of president Barak Obama for Vanity Fair in 2016 .

On Thursday, April 3 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., I watched the fourth Parked at Home webinar of the 2025 season. This is the fourth year of the Parked at Home series of virtual talks hosted by Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BLRV) and other sites in the National Park Service, along with the third year of summaries appearing on my blog. The presentations this year are interpreted into American Sign Language (ASL) by Sherrolyn King. The hour-long webinars will be uploaded to the BlackstoneNPS YouTube channel and available to view at any time. The fourth installment to this year’s series was Valley Forge National Historical Park featuring park ranger Sarah Reynolds.

On Thursday, March 20 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., I watched the second Parked at Home webinar of the 2025 season. This is the fourth year of the  Parked at Home series of virtual talks hosted by Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BLRV) and other sites in the National Park Service, along with the third year of summaries appearing on my blog. The presentations this year are interpreted into American Sign Language (ASL) by Sherrolyn King. The hour-long webinars will be uploaded to the BlackstoneNPS YouTube channel and available to view at any time. The second installment to this year’s series was Saratoga National Historical Park (SARA) in New York and featured Eric Schnitzer, a park ranger who has worked at Saratoga for almost thirty years.

In September 2024, I visited places and attended programs in Essex National Heritage Area as part of its annual event Trails & Sails . On my second day, I visited Hospital Point Lighthouse in Beverly, MA. Built in 1872, this lighthouse is owned by the United States Coast Guard and acts as a private residence for the First Coast Guard District Commander and his family. The open house during Trails & Sails is one of the few times the general public is permitted on the property, and regular readers know I cannot deny myself a good lighthouse tour .

In September 2024, I visited places and attended programs in Essex National Heritage Area as part of its annual event Trails & Sails . As my first day drew to a close, I made many quick history stops around the town of Manchester-by-the-Sea, so many that this requires a two-part post. The first half of this adventure appeared on Wednesday and included the harbor and train station, library, historic houses, memorials, church, and post office. This post will describe the original and the newest fire stations, another church, an American Revolutionary War era powder house, and other historic buildings.