A Trip to Beantown

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • February 26, 2018

A recent work-related trip up to Boston afforded me the opportunity for some professional development related field trips – and also a very gracious husband who took on the task of taking care of our three-year old son and eight-year old Siberian Husky – also known as two high energy bundles of lovable chaos – particularly when they decide to romp with one another!


My choice of hotel – historic of course! – was the lovely 1912 Fairmont Copley .  I try for historic inns and hotels – of course! – and since I have already stayed at another grand dame that is even older – the Parker House Hotel (1855) – I decided to try another and one that was close to where I planned to do some museum-going and architecture-gawking.  (The Copley is across the street from the Boston Public Library!)

 

Built on the site of the former Museum of Fine Arts that was demolished in about 1911, the Copley sits on wooden pilings drilled down into what is the swamp that Copley Square and much of the area is built on.  In fact, all of the “old” buildings are built on pilings including one of my first stops on my journey – the Boston Public Library .

I took a very nice tour of the BPL having never done that before.  I like to wander on my own and made sure to do that before the free tour that occurs once a day.  There were about twenty people on the tour from all over, including Boston.  The focus was of course on the McKim portion of the building and I have included images.  I have written about the BPL before – Maria Mitchell’s nephew was a senior architect with McKim, Mead, and White and designed the library with that team.  In fact, Maria’s name is inscribed on the exterior of the building.  This was McKim’s way of cementing his legacy and frankly, building a palace for the people – a palace of learning for all as it continues to be today.  He was involved in every level of every aspect from the statuary to the bronze doors to the tiniest detail.  Further graces to the building include amazing murals by the likes of very well-known artists of the day including one of my favorites John Singer Sargent.  And while I adore the late nineteenth century structure, I am almost just as captivated by the 1970s addition by Philip Johnson.  And at the juncture between the nineteenth and twentieth century buildings, I spent some time in the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center taking in an exhibit.

Being a walker, I decided to walk from Copley Square to the Museum of Fine Arts – about 1.5 miles one way.  Not bad, but as I came to recognize my island feet are just not use to pavement walking and by my return journey after walking all over the museum and the three plus miles of round trip walking, my feet were TIRED!


But it was well worth it.  While it was extremely crowed due to it being a free day and the Lunar New Year celebration, I did find some space for myself to take in my musts-sees – – my favorite artist of the eighteenth century being John Singleton Copley.  My favorites – “A Boy with a Flying Squirrel” (his half-brother), “Paul Revere,” “Mary and Elizabeth Royall,” and even the piece of wood with “Corkscrew on a Nail” – that is supposedly what he painted when as a guest at a house with no corkscrew to be found.  And of course, I followed that up with my nineteenth century favorite Winslow Homer and then Mary Cassatt.  I even had a moment to fully take in a work of marble by Harriet Hosmer – an American sculptor who worked in Italy and whom Maria met on her trip there in 1858.  Maria described her as “mad-cap” and “a little brisk pretty girl.”  From her descriptions and others that I have read, I would take her as being sprite-like but also a woman who was more free to be herself and to do as she wished well outside the realm of the “woman’s sphere” – particularly among her fellow artists of Europe.

Copley’s “Boy with a Flying Squirrel.”

A trip well spent – but oh my aching feet!  The Doc Marten’s Store on Newbury was a must stop for new shoes on my march back to the hotel!


JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • July 6, 2026
July 15. {1863} My dear Sally . . . I think Mitchell is all right in his algebra. He can’t stand an examination in Trig but I don’t believe he will have a rigorous one. Father has seen the Prof. and will give him a letter to them.  If you can’t be honest with your sibling, who can you be honest with? Apparently, Sally Mitchell Barney’s son, William Mitchell Barney – known as Mitchell as his cousin William Mitchell Barney was known as Willie (how is that for honoring your father?!) – was visiting his aunt Maria and his grandfather, William Mitchell, at their home in Lynn, MA. Sally still lived on Nantucket and I suspect Mitchell was not only visiting but getting some much needed help with his mathematics by his aunt Maria. As always, she is brutally honest – he won’t pass a test in trigonometry (but, neither would I!). JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 29, 2026
In April and early May, at long last, the Mitchell House roof was replaced. (I noted this in an earlier blog.) I had also noted that the roofwalk, given the condition it was in and its location – sitting on the ridge – had to be replaced. They had thought they could jack it up – as they have done with other walks – but the Blizzard of February 2026 that was ALL wind (83 MPH winds – read Category 1 Hurricane) and no real snow, made the walk impossible to treat in such a manner (read: crumble). So, after much discussion, review by our preservation easement holder, and permits, as well as some fundraising, we are replacing the roofwalk. The prior walk was not the original. The original blew off in a gale in the late nineteenth century, replaced at some point in the 1930s, and likely replaced again in the 1960s or 1970s. Then, since that time, it was heavily repaired. Its framing members were notched to accept the ridge boards (read: peak) of the roof and I think that may have been an original way to construct a walk. Makes perfect sense – and gives the walk more support and a lower profile. It was after all about putting out chimney fires and preventing roof fires. People copied what worked – and there have been a few others noted to be built in this manner still. It presents an issue though – because if you need to work on the ridge board or close to it – you cannot get to it easily – I guess you may be able to access it to some extent by lifting the deck boards of the walk. The new Mitchell House roofwalk will sit about six inches above the ridge – which will also allow air to circulate better over the ridge and the shakes in that area. That is the only thing that will really be different. It is protected by a preservation easement – as part of the Mitchell House’s easement – and frankly, even if we did not have an easement, we would not want it to look any different. So keep your eyes to the skies at 1 Vestal as we work to re-build the walk. With a special thank you to Barber and Sons and Lydon and Sons. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 22, 2026
1875, June 20. A meeting of the Officers of Congress was called at the house of Mrs. Hanaford, 5 Summit Ave., Jersey City. The weather was intensely cold. I went to New York on the 19 th and stopped with my friend Mrs. Clapp, 100 W. 54 St . . . .It was a question who should preside. Mrs. Hanaford thought the Chairman of the Executive Committee should and I had been told that I should, etc. The question was decided by the non-arrival of the Chairman of Ex.Com. I called them to order at an hour after the time appointed. Of course I made many blunders, as I have never presided before, but I continued for 4 hours. We did a few good things . . . The thing most weighing on Maria’s mind at this meeting was the looseness of membership for the Congress. She felt people were not being vetted properly in some areas of the country and thus they may allow in “undesirables.” I would take this to mean women who were not entirely behind the cause of the Congress and the Association for the Advancement of Women. I am not surprised by her suspicions and likely she was correct – one could see naysayers gaining access to this group and trying to destroy it from the inside. The women’s rights movement would have many schisms within it as people disagreed and broke into smaller factions.  Another important thing to point out is that Mrs. Hanaford is Nantucket-born Phebe Coffin Hanaford. Raised a Quaker, like Maria, Coffin Hanaford would become the first woman Universalist minister in New England – among many other firsts. She grew up with Maria, attended and taught at the Coffin School here on Nantucket, and was a founding member of another women’s organization, Sorosis, which Maria was also a founding member of. It’s nice to see two sister Nantucketers continuing to work together as adults – far from home! JNLF
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