August 9, 2024 • 39 mins
Jack Harte tourist attraction driver for sight seeing trolley in Boston. He brings history to life.
Morgan White Jr. filled in for Dan Rea.
Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio!
Morgan White Jr. filled in for Dan Rea.
Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's night with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm going easy. Boston's the next two hours, we'll take
you on a tour of Boston. And that voice you
hear in the background, that's my buddy Jack Hart. And
Jack Hi. You are the tour guide. I'm the tour guide,
and you make sure that everybody behaves. Yes, don't stick
(00:25):
your arms out the window on the bus, that's right.
And tipping is allowed, that's.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Right, sometimes the left, sometimes for the right.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
You hear Jackhart doing traffic as you did just a
couple of minutes ago, but he has an additional occupation.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
That's right. Not only do I talk about traffic, I sit.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
In it and at times even cause.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Traffic from time to time.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
From time to time, that's exactly right. Tell people for
the company for what company do you work?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I work for a trolley tours. It's the Silver Trolley
of the several trolleys out and around them, the Silver
where the Silver Trolley Company will pick us up on
Atlantic Avenue, right by the Long Long Morph and right
near the New England Aquarium, and we're right out there.
Come up and buy a ticket, and if you tell
them that I sent you, they'll add two dollars out
(01:19):
of the price.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
And how long is your tour?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
About about thirty five? Oh, no, the time wise.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
In time if you get on at ten, what time
is the tour over?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well, it's a city, of course, so you know, we'll
tell you that it's an hour tour. We might be
back there in fifty five minutes. We might be back
there in an hour and ten minutes. And as has
happened a time or two towards the end of the
day before a holiday weekend, three hours.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well, we have approximately an hour and fifty minutes to
take this tour with you.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
So everybody that goes to atlantav right there by the aquarium,
you've gotten your ticket. Now, this is a double decker bus,
is it not?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
No, it is not. Oh okay, I'm sorry it's not though. No,
there are there are there are there are. There are
genuine double decker buses down there.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
There.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
There used to be two companies. Now there's only one.
Uh there and uh and they do their thing. They're
one of the newest companies in Then there's the Then
there's the the stadium buses. Those are the ones with
the very high seating, but they're not actually double decker.
They are only one deck, right, And those were actually
designed by a company that I by a group of
(02:40):
myself and several others in a company that I used
to manage that's went out of business two years after
I left, which nice but any rate, But so so
those exist. We have the the the the typical uh.
They're trolley's made by a company called Mally up and
up and oh Gunkwood, Maine and Wells, Maine actually and
(03:04):
and so they're it's essentially it's a it's a Ford
uh mobile home chassis what it is. And so yeah,
so they're they're the typical. They're like eleven feet high.
So you see them there. They're what you typically expect
to see when you when you look for a for
trolley tour.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Now the duck boats do the same thing.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Well they do that, No, they do something different. We
have an on and off formula, so you buy a
ticket with the with city view or with the uh.
The other companies and the people who are mean to
their passengers, and they're they're all kind of nice, I guess,
but they you know, the several of us do there.
(03:47):
There are several of us who do the on and
off formula hop on and off, although nobody nobody hops,
everybody's always stepping. But they're the the on and off tours,
so you know, they are a number of stops throughout
the city. City View has nine stops throughout the essentially
around the Freedom Trail route, and you get off. You
spend as much time as you want. You want to
go to the Constitution, spend two hours there if you want,
(04:07):
spend fifteen minutes there. About every fifteen to twenty minutes,
another one of our trolleys comes past, and you just
show your ticket and get back on the ducks. They
do something different. They do about an eighty minute tour.
You don't get off it. You have the same conductor.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
No, because there's water and powder of the tour.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Well, oh yeah, just for a few minutes though, I mean,
you know, they take you on a pretty good surface tour,
pretty good surface tour of the city. And then they
go into the Charles River for forty seven forty eight
seconds and then they come out. No, no, they go
about ten minutes into the Charles River right and tightens
some stories and then they come back out. But you
(04:45):
don't get off that trip once you you know, well,
you get on, you take the entire trip, and then
you get off. Yeah, if you wanted to get off
in the middle of the Charles, there'd be news stories
about it every day. And so that's you know. So
that's the difference between the duck and the trolley. And
the trolley goes into the It can go into the water,
but only once.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
It's not the going into the water, it's the getting
out of the water once you've gone in.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
That's the tough part. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Now I'm gonna tell you a quick story. Then we're
going to take our break and open up the phone lines. Excellent,
this happened. Oh good grief, my son, who's now forty one.
This happened when he was sixteen, maybe fifteen. I had
a show to do in Philadelphia. I brought him with me,
(05:37):
much to the overconcerned by my then wife now my ex,
and she gave me solid rules make sure he is safe.
She knew I was gonna be working at convention, so
I couldn't keep eyes on him. But one of her
(05:57):
rules was make sure he never leaves the hotel. Now
I'll repeat that, never leaves the hotel. And we stayed
at the Adams Mark hotel, which is on the outskirts
of Philly. It's like Framingham to Boston. And I told him, Evan,
(06:20):
I'm going to work. You cannot leave the hotel. And
he became friendly with the concierge there, and he was
told by the concierge that there's a tour. You get
on the bus. It takes you all around Liberty Bell
Ben Franklin Statue in Philly. Yay. So when I came
(06:45):
home that day, because it's a four day convention, he said, Dad,
can I go on the tour? I'll stay on the bus.
Here are the two words. I promise, I'll stay on
the bus. And I figure, fine, how often does a
teenager get a chance to see one of America's most
(07:05):
historic cities?
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Sure the other great Liberty.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So here we go. I told him he could go.
He goes. Now, I don't hear about this until after
the fact. I come back after doing trivia at this
convention all day, and he told me this is a
great city. I was able to get off the bus
(07:31):
and I said, what, Oh, well, the bus comes around
and you can get on another bus if you know
where to pick it up. I said, I thought we
had a deal that you were going to get off
the bus. Oh but dad, it was safe, and you know.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
How he was fifteen.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, okay, it was safe. He's now telling me past
tense about the story. But I knew if he told
the story to my ex, Holy heck would be dumped
upon my head. Yeap, yep, yep. And the fact that
(08:12):
I got to hear about all the places that he
was able to walk to, because a lot of the
Philly historic sites are within walking distance. Yet and still
the bus took you on a greater array of the
historic sites. So what you're telling me is you do
the same thing here in Boston.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
We do the same thing. We we let children get
lost in the city.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yet no, I'm stopping you here. On that note, I'm
going to take a break. If people want to call
in six seven, two, five, four, ten thirty or eight eight, eight,
nine to nineteen thirty and ask questions, Yes, trust me,
Jack knows Boston history.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And if I don't know something that I'll be something.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
You make it up. Shit, don't tell them that. But
if you want to know about the Boston massacre and
the five people lost their lives, but another seventeen to
twenty people were wounded, and how it started with snowballs.
Jack can tell you all of that. That's right, that's right.
So let's take our break. Time and temperature here on
(09:23):
night Side ten sixteen seventy nine degrees.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Night Side Studios on w b Z.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
The news radio.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Dan, we'll be back on Monday, I promise. But until then,
I am here and I'm joined by Jack Hart, and
we're doing the best we can to teach a little
history on a Friday night here on Nightside. We've already
got a couple of calls. But Jack, before we take
a phone call, Yeah, I brought up the Boston massacre,
and I know that's on our tour. I know we're
(09:58):
not going in if I sat with that now, But
since I brought it up, give the history of that
incident back in March of what seventeen seventy.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
March seventeen seventy, no, seventeen seventy, yes, yeah, And it's
important that's that we know that particular date because here's
the thing. I contend that the Boston massacre was not happenstance,
that it was a setup. And I'll tell you why
number one March nineteen, seventeen seventy. So the British soldiers
(10:32):
showed up in Boston in seventeen sixty eight. They started
the occupation of Boston seventeen sixty eight. Boston was the
first town to get them, and Limesley because Boston, being
very rural, very urban people had more time to sort
of think a little bit. And after seventeen sixty five
(10:52):
with the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act imposed unreasonable taxes
on the colonists and it didn't last very long. Was
replaced by the Townsend Act that essentially said that England
can repeal the Stamp Act, but now we can make
any rule we want against the colonists and there's nothing
you can do about it. So from that came the
(11:12):
Sons of Liberty that grew out of Boston mostly and
with a little bit of activity down in Philadelphia. Boston
is the first town to experience the occupation of the
British occupation, and so by seventeen seventy they're here about
a year and a half. By March of seventeen seventy
(11:33):
they are about a year and a half. They were
out of March of sixty eight, but the other colonies
have not experienced this so much yet, and this rebellion
it's just a rebellion at this point seventeen seventy, very
early on, just a rebellion, so it hasn't really spread
to the other colonies so much. So now Sam Adams
and John Hancock, amongst their duties, is really to kind
(11:55):
of create visibility and create support from other colonies and
from other groups for this burgeoning rebeccon and so on
March fifth, seventeen seventy pretty soldier to hear about a
year and a half, not very well, like they're pushing
people around. They're their own countrymen. Everybody's British here and
(12:18):
they're their own countrymen. And they're in Boston. They're pushing
people around, they're taking up resources. They're not getting paid
a novel lot from England for their service, so they're
they're taking part time jobs and things here and there.
So on this partition. A couple of days before first
of about a week or so before the Boston massacre,
(12:39):
down at what's now the intersection of Essex and Washington
and Boylston Streets right down there in Chinatown, and there
was a what they call the Liberty Tree. There was
a tree there that some of these rebels would meet
and plan their strategies and pass in from British soldiers
(13:01):
show up at one of these meetings and fire into
the crowd and kill the seventeen year old whose name
isn't coming to me now. So first of all, you've
got that going on, so you've got a little bit
of a you've got a little motivation. A few days later,
So a week or so later, over at John Gray's
rope Walk over in Charlestown, there's a long building along
the Charlestown Navy Yard every going down to the Charlestown
(13:24):
Navy As a building, it's about a quarter mile long.
It's called the Ropewalk. Its apartments are condominiums now, but
it's called the rope Walk. They made and all the
rope for the United States Navy was made there until
nineteen seventy four. But any rate they used to make
rope there. They had these long, quarter mile long buildings
because they didn't know you could coil it at that point,
and they so British soldiers came in at some point.
(13:47):
So now there's a lot of people are working there
making rope British soldiers came in at about a week
before this incident on King Street, as the British refer
to the Boston massacre. So about a week before, some
British soldiers show up at the rope walk and they're
looking for they're looking for work, and so the foreman says, yeah,
(14:10):
you can clean they essentially the outhouses. He didn't use
quite that pleasant language. And so a big fight and started,
and you know, it was like a like an anticap
comic strip, big cloud of a big cloud of arms
and legs stick it out of it, you know, and
a big beef between the people working at the rope
(14:31):
walk and and other people along the docks there and
these British soldiers. So big fight comes along. So a
week or so later, it's a Monday night, it's a
cold Monday night. There's one British soldier. And actually we
say that it happened in front of the old State House,
because the custom House is no longer. There would be
(14:51):
about where sixty State Street is right now, all right,
a tremont or a Congress and State Street. So they
there was one loan century and uh so early in
the afternoon, uh the couple of a couple of uh
uh uh young teenagers go by there and they start
(15:15):
throwing snowballs at the soldier, and a couple of mothers
come on. They get into a little bit of a
beef and everybody's given everybody a hard time, and a
couple of these soldiers, you know, they they sort of
huh whacked. These are these kids with the with the
butts of their rifles.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
So now you just said these two things.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
The soldiers had rifles, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
All the kids from the colonies had snowballs.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
They had snowballs. So because because here's the thing, the
British had taken everybody's guns. They had taken everybody's guns.
They had no weapons. So this is what they're doing
is you know, I'm I believe that that that they're
they're they're there. This is all part of a plan.
And uh so a little while later, coming out, you know,
at nine o'clock at night on a Monday, all right,
(16:02):
it's snowing, it's cold, nobody's out. In seventeen seventy nine,
nine o'clock on a Monday, in a cold and snowy night,
all of a sudden, you know, several hundred people show
up down there and they start harassing these, you know,
the soldiers there, and then a few more come out,
total of eight soldiers come out, and so they start
(16:22):
pelting them with snowballs, rocks, coming at them with cudgels
or clubs, and so they're surrounding these eight soldiers. That
you've got eight soldiers that bags are up against a
wall somewhere three four hundred people are crushing in on
them and so a bell. So there's a lot of confusion.
(16:42):
There's a lot of yelling and a lot of things
going on. The soldiers are given the order not to
fire unless specifically ordered. They're not to fire at will.
They're supposed to wait for an order to fire. So
in the meantime, now, on a Monday night, all of
a sudden, a church in a nearby steeple starts ringing.
(17:02):
There's only two reasons why a church bell rings in
those days. One is a call the Sunday go to
meeting or other events at the church. The other is
because there's a frire. No because there's a fire. Okay,
So what happens people start yelling. So just as the
crowd is pushing in some the crowd starts yelling fire.
(17:24):
The soldiers are confused, they don't know what to do.
Matter of fact, amongst these soldiers are several of those
people who've gotten that fight down at at the rope
walk several days earlier. And so, you know, so so,
you know, and and a couple of them were what
we we call in today's you know, today's parlance, knuckleheads.
You knows, well, well big you know, a couple of
(17:45):
these soldiers with these sort of big, goofy guys, you know,
and who always willing to knuckle somebody's head anyway. And
so so at any rate, that kind of standing out
in front, sticking their chest out and things against his marble,
like three hundred people, and so they started crushing it.
The people are screaming fire. The soldiers don't know what
to do. They fire a word, they hear the word,
(18:07):
they fire into the crowd. They fire into the crowd,
and eight people had done. You said there were a
bunch of people down. You know, it takes too long
to load a musket. You wouldn't have had more than
eight people down, right, unless somebody got hit by the
same musket ball twice. So eight people are down and
u and because they're thinking that, well, first they raised
(18:28):
them muskets. They think they're going to chase away the crowd.
They think they're going to scare away the crowd by
raising them muskets. Crowd goes crazy, crowds goes wild. Now,
question is who's in this crowd now. Sam Adams and
John Hancock had a number of people who they call
their bully boys. And Sam's people were, you know, would
(18:50):
have been located more down along what we would call
the South Station area now right, and John Hancock's bully
boys would have been the people who were more down
towards the north end in Charlestown area. Okay, And so
you know, so and that covers a big area. It
really does cover a fair fair pretty big area.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So you know, you've got a lot of people down there,
and a lot of these people to see, a lot
of these people like you know, uh, these people who
worked on John Hancock on his boats if if he
didn't have work then they were making rope over it,
John Gray's rope walk and so forth and so on.
So these are all people who are actually affected by
Britain's policies. They're actually affected because they're losing work and
(19:36):
uh and you know, these these are laborers. These are
people who need the money, you know, and because there's
no other, there's no other, you know, sort of high
side hustles. We have side hustles today. You know, you
don't have the side hustles some probably, but you know,
uh they if they well there were one was side
hustle was if you're worry were they're working on a boat,
You're working making rope and uh so you know. So
(19:59):
so my question is people don't even talk about this.
Are these people Sam and John's bully boys and so
five people two people die on the spot, Christmas Addicts
and Sam Gray they die on the spot, and three
others of Patrick Carr, Samuel Maverick, and James Caldwell they
(20:22):
died over the next several days, and then several others recovered.
And they're all considered to be the first bloodshed for
the cause of the American Revolution.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Now I gotta stop. I gotta stop here for break, Okay,
but we can pick that up and for Patrick from Colorado,
you will be first. As soon as Jack Cart finishes
the story about the Boston massacre here on night side
time and temperature ten thirty one seventy nine degrees. It's
(20:55):
night Side with Dany Boston's News Dance Off. I'm here
on Morgan, don't forget. I have my showy Saturday night
at ten and Tomorrow night I'm going to be playing trivia,
having done it in a couple of months. But next Saturday,
the seventeenth scheduled and Jack, you know, you always have
(21:19):
to say that when you've got a special guest. That's right,
I've got Jerry Mathers as the beaver.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Really yes, wow, he.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Is scheduled and hopefully I'll be able to open up
the phone line. So anybody who's always wanted to speak
to Jerry Mathers, you can. I had Tony dow on
at least three occasions. He passed away within the past
year or so. But the beaver is still here. The
beaver is still here. You know, when we talk about
(21:49):
Cops Hill Burying Ground, we talk about the about some
of the people who are buried up there, including you know,
Cotton Mathers, Richard Mathers, Increased Mathers, Jerry Mathers, you know,
And I thought you were going to go in a
different direction because when you think of the Boston tea party,
the three ships were the eleanor the Dartmouth and the
(22:13):
Beaver and the beaver, the tread and the beaver. So
real quick, I'm going to have you interrupt your story
because Patrick and Colorado has been holding for like seventeen
to eighteen minutes, so let's bring him into our conversation. Patrick,
thank you for calling in. So where do you Hi there?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Hello? Patrick?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Hi Jack Jack. I want to talk about your role
in Boston history a little bit. Uh So, Tony Mesbitt,
who I'm sure you know, is Nathan's producer for many years,
and he has taken old Nor Nathan Show and made
a podcast out of him.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yeah, wonderful, fabulous listening to it. You're a huge part
of the show because you will always be on the
first the game playing.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
The dumb birthday birthday game.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
That's dumb birthday game, exactly. And it seems like you
won probably half the time I was won. If you
have any stories about norm you know at that time,
that must have been the first your first job out
of school, I guess right, because you must have been
(23:25):
you know, late twenties, right, Yes, I.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Was, and I'm just in my my early four hundreds.
Now I knew Ben Franklin. Now the I was I
was probably I was in my late twenties, exactly right.
I had done some other things. I wanted to be
in radio, but you know, you know the world I
grew up in, you know, it was always you're always
encouraged to get a good job, you know, And so
(23:52):
as much as I wanted to be in radio, I
didn't get into it until I was in my late twenties.
And and and it kind of fell out of the
sky a little bit of the truth. But I saw
I was in my late twenties, and I had my
first thing that I was doing, was working for in
those days was Metro Traffic Control, and which no longer
is are has been consumed, has been absorbed by other
(24:14):
traffic traffic companies over the years. But yeah, I was
assigned to w b Z and and the first time
that Norm and I the first time that I was
doing uh traffic on Norm show was it was just
an odd thing.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
He he.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I didn't really know so much about Norm Nay, and
I was aware of him, but I really hadn't listened
too much and he uh, he was doing the thing
he was talking on there about about the Fabulous Baker
Boys is at the name of the movie with Michelle Pfiffer,
and and he was talking about Michelle Pfeiffer singing the
song where she's on the piano. And so I don't
(24:55):
know why, but he threw traffic to me. I was
new to. I was new to at the time. I
had no there was no real reason for me to
be so brash and and brazen. But he said so
I said, a wow, what's going on over there? And
and I said, norm, I'm up on top of my
radio console here just writhing and singing. And uh so
(25:19):
from that effect, so from there on in he and
I just had this this wonderful on air chemistry. Yeah.
And and I kicked myself oftentimes but for but I
also feel regret. One of the things that I never
did was I didn't I never called up Norman and said,
(25:41):
let me take you to lunch, you know, let's let's
hang out for a while. So while we did well,
we were at several social occasions together, a couple of
birthday parties and one of two weddings, I did not
socialize with him you know, Tony Tony Nesbitt had a
great relationship with Norm, and he spent a lot of
time with him. But I did not, I did not
(26:06):
take advantage of the of the opportunity to spend any
personal time, spend any significant personal time with Norm, and
I regret that he was a wonderful person. We had
an awful lot of fun on his show with things
just happened to click. He would come up with a
with a bit and he might clue me in a
little bit about what, you know, what might be kind
(26:28):
of fun to do. Sometimes things just just happened on
the air. But people thought that we had scripted things
out and so forth, and it was just one of
those things that you know, it's one in a million
kind of situations whereby, you know, just just two people
ended up working out, working very well together and having
you know, probably more fun than I've ever had.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
And Patrick, let me tell you my quote unquote radio
career began with and through Norm Nathan.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Summer of nineteen eighty Norm was working at WHDH. I
can mention they call letters because they don't exist anymore.
But he had a Saturday evening show where he played trivia,
and he had a core of people who were everyday people,
(27:21):
not radio people, just Joe and Jane radio listeners that
could come on and interact on this show. I had
just written a book called The TV Cartoon Trivia Book,
which was my introduction into being used by Norm, and
I was one of the core of regulars Marty man Asian,
(27:47):
Bernie Corbett. I'm trying to think of the other people,
but the point of it is being on that show
led for me getting a taste of radio and loving it.
And Norm in the fall left HDH and went to
RKO and did mornings over there, and I asked him,
(28:10):
can I try to keep the trivia thing going? He said, Morgan,
do whatever you want. It's available to you. If you
think you can make it work, make it work. And
I wound up going to wun R sixteen hundred on
the AM dial, the worst time slot in radio, Monday
(28:31):
mornings two am to four am. Oh boy, that was
my time slot, my show talking trivia. Fortunately, there was
a baseball strike and that baseball strike led wits having
a lot of time to fill because they couldn't have
(28:52):
baseball no red Sox. I then shifted from un r
to its and the rest is history. And it was
because because of Norm primarily and David Brudnoy, that I
get the boost to get into the radio world of Boston.
That's the story. That's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
That's great. That was before I was in Boston. So
how long did Norm do that morning show then on
our KO Just.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
A couple of years and then he came over to BZ.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Yeah, and did he remind me, did he do just
weekend nights or weekday nights as well, because it's hard
to tell from the podcast, you know.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, he sometimes would fill in for Bob Rawley, Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Like I'm filling in now for Dan Ray.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, and I always look forward to you filling in
to Dan. I'm mad. I don't like I don't like
talking politics on the radio, and I just love your
show and love when you fill in and love when
Jack is there.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Thank you, Kinny. We try to be friends in the
night here, all right.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Patrick, thank you for your call.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, thank you guys.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
All right, enjoy the rest of your weekend, and believe
it or not, Jack, I have another break to take
so we can pick up on the end of your
Boston massacre story and then do the tour as if
you're driving the bus. Sure, if anyone else they wants
to do what Patrick just did six one, seven, two, five, four,
(30:21):
ten thirty eight, eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty
will get you through two. Here to Night's Side. I'm
filling in for Dan Ray. I'm Morgan. That's Jack Hart
and time and temperature ten forty five still seventy nine degrees.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Jack Hart is here and not telling us about the
highways and byways of Greater Boston. He's here to talk
about history. But you know what, Jack, of all the
people listening right now, Norm Nathan's daughter is listening. She
called in during the break, and I think we've put
a smile on her face hearing us say pleasant things
(31:09):
about her dad. It was a broadcasting legend.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, fifty years in the business are actually little more
than fifty years in the business.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, and nobody did radio. I mean we all put
our own unique spin on it, but nobody did radio
the way Norm did.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah. People don't you know there's sport. There are an
awful lot of people who who've been in radio over
the years, but very few get as many mentions as
Norm has. You know, people asking about memories of Norm.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yes, and he was a very pleasant man both to
know and to listen to and watch. Don't forget back
in the days of HDH having both a TV and
radio presence, he was on on Channel five periodically in
different ways, and you get to see Norm.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Yeah, he did like a real estate show. At some point,
I look at people's houses are there? And oh, you.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Do a very good Norm imitation.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Well, I listened to Norm for an awful long time,
and you know, we've got similar similar vocal qualities. Hello,
it was a little bit more imagine late I add,
you know.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
And way to go, old sporting way to go.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, we had fun.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
All right, let's we left it hanging. So let's finish
the busted massacre story and go on to other things.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Okay, So I'll quickly tell you a little bit about
some of the people who were who were killed at
the thing. So you got about three hundred people down there,
A lot of these people. It's my contention that these
were all people who worked for Sam and John and
so a Christmas attics. He was the first one killed.
So who was Christmas Atic. Christmas Atics was nearly fifty
years old at the time as late forties, was born,
(32:56):
about as old as Sam Adams at the same time.
They were both born in seventeen twenty. He was born
in Framingham and his mother was a Natick Indian and
she lived in a praying Indian town and the and
his father was a It's unclear. I've looked a number
of different sources. It's unclear whether his father was an
enslaved person or a freeman in the area. It's unclear
(33:18):
what the relationship was between the mother and the father
and Christmas. As Attics had done mister Addicks, who worked
in he had been enslaved in different places, but by
the time he by the time of the Boston massacre,
he was a free man living in There was a
black community in right around Cops Hill in the North End,
about a thousand people living in there a time, mostly
(33:39):
laborers and so and and he would work for Sam
Adams and other and other people who who owned ships
as a merchant sailor when when that work was available,
but with various sanctions and things going on, he didn't
have an awful lot of that. So we'd go across
the bridge to Charlestown over and work over at John
(34:00):
Gray's wrote rock over there, roAP factory over there, and
he was, like I said, it was nearly fifty years
old at the time. And now Sam Gray, who was there,
was probably related to John Gray, it's not clear. He
was the second person killed. He was killed right on
the spot and he had been in a different kind
of trouble before, probably because he was involved in some
(34:23):
of these little riots and things that were going on.
And so now the other three Patrick Carr was an
indentured servant from Ireland, and the other two Samuel Samuel
Maverick and James Caldwell, they were teenagers. They were seventeen
eighteen years old though, So those are the people who
were killed, and then the others who were injured. It
(34:46):
no real clear indication as to who they were. But
at any rate, so now everybody's British down there. Everybody's British.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
So John Ann, we all were British. Boston was an
extension of Britain, that's right.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
It was just England the only thing. We just didn't
have any representation in parliament, and that's what everybody was doing. Here,
and everybody was happy that building a new world essentially
for the benefit of England, and everybody was good until
until the Charles the Third came along, and George the
Third came along. George the Third. Currently it's Charles the third.
(35:21):
George the third came along, and he had the Seven
Years War that had or the French and Indian Wars
we called it around here, went into cost overruns, and
he had other financial issues over there in England. He
was very jinguistic about his British nests and kind of
thought that the people in the colonies and other places
(35:42):
were just sort of hillbillies and bumpkins, and thought that
he could stick his chest out and make all these
rules and laws. In Parliament was feeling the same way,
and so that's that's that, this is the this is
the genesis of the of the issue. Everything has caused
and effect so at any rate, now, Sam John Adams's
he's an attorney, he's a young attorney. And there's another
(36:04):
attorney in town, Josiah Quincy. And there were several Josiah
Quincy's over the course in time. But this Josiah Quincy
was a young lawyer and he didn't have enough background,
I didn't have enough experience that he felt to be
involved in the case with these with these eight soldiers,
because now these soldiers, they're they're considered to be charged with.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Murder, and they needed representations.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
They need a representation, they need a representation in court.
So John Adams I contend that he was a bit
of an opportunist and he saw an opportunity because at
seventeen seventy, this is year, this is several years before
the war itself. People are still on the fence. Most
people are still they're protesting against England. But only a
small group of these people are interested in starting a
(36:52):
new country. And John was not was not necessarily John
Adams was not necessarily interested in starting a new country.
He thought it might put him in good stead with
with with the without the England if if he uh
defended these uh eight soldiers. He's eight soldiers. So he
(37:12):
did and uh all and uh six of them were
acquitted of all charges and the other two were were
found guilty on lesser charges manslaughter charges essentially. And for
their punishment they were branded on the hand and sent
(37:33):
back to England.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Wow, and you think that Karen Reid case was busy.
That's exactly right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And so that's so that's the that is uh, that's
the Boston massacre or the incident on King Street in
a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, they didn't call it that in England. It's like
you go below the Mason Dixon line. They still don't
like the phrase of wars or be wix the states.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
That's right, that's right. Yeah. So yeah, so this was
the incident on King Street and so yeah, that was
the You know, there's a lot more to it. You
could actually talk about the Boston massacre for days on
end and debate it and dispute it.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Wow, that's giving it a good thirty five minutes. Yeah,
and I want to get back on the tour bus.
And I do want to get at least five or
six stops on the bus and brought to thirty eight
states in Canada through our discussion. So we'll get into
that next hour. Okay, but what is going to be
(38:38):
our first stop? We went out of order by jumping
up to the Boston mascer beginning at the Old State House.
But what traditionally is your first stop.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
We start out at the Long Long Wharf down near
the new England Aquarium. We'll talk about that.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
That's where we will begin. You've got to wear your
other hat, because three minutes into the news you're going
to be telling people about the highways and byways that try.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
You're going to be talking about some issues down and
near the Cape of.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Cod and compromised drivers, as you have been known to
put it. That's right, Okay, well let me get out
the way so we can begin little news, a little traffic,
a little weather here on night side. My name is Morgan.
By the way, that's Jack Hart. You should know that
by now, and I might as well just throw it
(39:33):
to Rob Brooks, who as my producer, and once I
say these magic words, he will push buttons so you'll
hear maybe a commercial or two here on night side.
Time and temperature ten fifty eight and seventy nine degrees
It's night with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm going easy. Boston's the next two hours, we'll take
you on a tour of Boston. And that voice you
hear in the background, that's my buddy Jack Hart. And
Jack Hi. You are the tour guide. I'm the tour guide,
and you make sure that everybody behaves. Yes, don't stick
(00:25):
your arms out the window on the bus, that's right.
And tipping is allowed, that's.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Right, sometimes the left, sometimes for the right.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
You hear Jackhart doing traffic as you did just a
couple of minutes ago, but he has an additional occupation.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
That's right. Not only do I talk about traffic, I sit.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
In it and at times even cause.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Traffic from time to time.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
From time to time, that's exactly right. Tell people for
the company for what company do you work?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I work for a trolley tours. It's the Silver Trolley
of the several trolleys out and around them, the Silver
where the Silver Trolley Company will pick us up on
Atlantic Avenue, right by the Long Long Morph and right
near the New England Aquarium, and we're right out there.
Come up and buy a ticket, and if you tell
them that I sent you, they'll add two dollars out
(01:19):
of the price.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
And how long is your tour?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
About about thirty five? Oh, no, the time wise.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
In time if you get on at ten, what time
is the tour over?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well, it's a city, of course, so you know, we'll
tell you that it's an hour tour. We might be
back there in fifty five minutes. We might be back
there in an hour and ten minutes. And as has
happened a time or two towards the end of the
day before a holiday weekend, three hours.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well, we have approximately an hour and fifty minutes to
take this tour with you.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
So everybody that goes to atlantav right there by the aquarium,
you've gotten your ticket. Now, this is a double decker bus,
is it not?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
No, it is not. Oh okay, I'm sorry it's not though. No,
there are there are there are there are. There are
genuine double decker buses down there.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
There.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
There used to be two companies. Now there's only one.
Uh there and uh and they do their thing. They're
one of the newest companies in Then there's the Then
there's the the stadium buses. Those are the ones with
the very high seating, but they're not actually double decker.
They are only one deck, right, And those were actually
designed by a company that I by a group of
(02:40):
myself and several others in a company that I used
to manage that's went out of business two years after
I left, which nice but any rate, But so so
those exist. We have the the the the typical uh.
They're trolley's made by a company called Mally up and
up and oh Gunkwood, Maine and Wells, Maine actually and
(03:04):
and so they're it's essentially it's a it's a Ford
uh mobile home chassis what it is. And so yeah,
so they're they're the typical. They're like eleven feet high.
So you see them there. They're what you typically expect
to see when you when you look for a for
trolley tour.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Now the duck boats do the same thing.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Well they do that, No, they do something different. We
have an on and off formula, so you buy a
ticket with the with city view or with the uh.
The other companies and the people who are mean to
their passengers, and they're they're all kind of nice, I guess,
but they you know, the several of us do there.
(03:47):
There are several of us who do the on and
off formula hop on and off, although nobody nobody hops,
everybody's always stepping. But they're the the on and off tours,
so you know, they are a number of stops throughout
the city. City View has nine stops throughout the essentially
around the Freedom Trail route, and you get off. You
spend as much time as you want. You want to
go to the Constitution, spend two hours there if you want,
(04:07):
spend fifteen minutes there. About every fifteen to twenty minutes,
another one of our trolleys comes past, and you just
show your ticket and get back on the ducks. They
do something different. They do about an eighty minute tour.
You don't get off it. You have the same conductor.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
No, because there's water and powder of the tour.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Well, oh yeah, just for a few minutes though, I mean,
you know, they take you on a pretty good surface tour,
pretty good surface tour of the city. And then they
go into the Charles River for forty seven forty eight
seconds and then they come out. No, no, they go
about ten minutes into the Charles River right and tightens
some stories and then they come back out. But you
(04:45):
don't get off that trip once you you know, well,
you get on, you take the entire trip, and then
you get off. Yeah, if you wanted to get off
in the middle of the Charles, there'd be news stories
about it every day. And so that's you know. So
that's the difference between the duck and the trolley. And
the trolley goes into the It can go into the water,
but only once.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
It's not the going into the water, it's the getting
out of the water once you've gone in.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
That's the tough part. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Now I'm gonna tell you a quick story. Then we're
going to take our break and open up the phone lines. Excellent,
this happened. Oh good grief, my son, who's now forty one.
This happened when he was sixteen, maybe fifteen. I had
a show to do in Philadelphia. I brought him with me,
(05:37):
much to the overconcerned by my then wife now my ex,
and she gave me solid rules make sure he is safe.
She knew I was gonna be working at convention, so
I couldn't keep eyes on him. But one of her
(05:57):
rules was make sure he never leaves the hotel. Now
I'll repeat that, never leaves the hotel. And we stayed
at the Adams Mark hotel, which is on the outskirts
of Philly. It's like Framingham to Boston. And I told him, Evan,
(06:20):
I'm going to work. You cannot leave the hotel. And
he became friendly with the concierge there, and he was
told by the concierge that there's a tour. You get
on the bus. It takes you all around Liberty Bell
Ben Franklin Statue in Philly. Yay. So when I came
(06:45):
home that day, because it's a four day convention, he said, Dad,
can I go on the tour? I'll stay on the bus.
Here are the two words. I promise, I'll stay on
the bus. And I figure, fine, how often does a
teenager get a chance to see one of America's most
(07:05):
historic cities?
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Sure the other great Liberty.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So here we go. I told him he could go.
He goes. Now, I don't hear about this until after
the fact. I come back after doing trivia at this
convention all day, and he told me this is a
great city. I was able to get off the bus
(07:31):
and I said, what, Oh, well, the bus comes around
and you can get on another bus if you know
where to pick it up. I said, I thought we
had a deal that you were going to get off
the bus. Oh but dad, it was safe, and you know.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
How he was fifteen.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, okay, it was safe. He's now telling me past
tense about the story. But I knew if he told
the story to my ex, Holy heck would be dumped
upon my head. Yeap, yep, yep. And the fact that
(08:12):
I got to hear about all the places that he
was able to walk to, because a lot of the
Philly historic sites are within walking distance. Yet and still
the bus took you on a greater array of the
historic sites. So what you're telling me is you do
the same thing here in Boston.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
We do the same thing. We we let children get
lost in the city.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yet no, I'm stopping you here. On that note, I'm
going to take a break. If people want to call
in six seven, two, five, four, ten thirty or eight eight, eight,
nine to nineteen thirty and ask questions, Yes, trust me,
Jack knows Boston history.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And if I don't know something that I'll be something.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
You make it up. Shit, don't tell them that. But
if you want to know about the Boston massacre and
the five people lost their lives, but another seventeen to
twenty people were wounded, and how it started with snowballs.
Jack can tell you all of that. That's right, that's right.
So let's take our break. Time and temperature here on
(09:23):
night Side ten sixteen seventy nine degrees.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Night Side Studios on w b Z.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
The news radio.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Dan, we'll be back on Monday, I promise. But until then,
I am here and I'm joined by Jack Hart, and
we're doing the best we can to teach a little
history on a Friday night here on Nightside. We've already
got a couple of calls. But Jack, before we take
a phone call, Yeah, I brought up the Boston massacre,
and I know that's on our tour. I know we're
(09:58):
not going in if I sat with that now, But
since I brought it up, give the history of that
incident back in March of what seventeen seventy.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
March seventeen seventy, no, seventeen seventy, yes, yeah, And it's
important that's that we know that particular date because here's
the thing. I contend that the Boston massacre was not happenstance,
that it was a setup. And I'll tell you why
number one March nineteen, seventeen seventy. So the British soldiers
(10:32):
showed up in Boston in seventeen sixty eight. They started
the occupation of Boston seventeen sixty eight. Boston was the
first town to get them, and Limesley because Boston, being
very rural, very urban people had more time to sort
of think a little bit. And after seventeen sixty five
(10:52):
with the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act imposed unreasonable taxes
on the colonists and it didn't last very long. Was
replaced by the Townsend Act that essentially said that England
can repeal the Stamp Act, but now we can make
any rule we want against the colonists and there's nothing
you can do about it. So from that came the
(11:12):
Sons of Liberty that grew out of Boston mostly and
with a little bit of activity down in Philadelphia. Boston
is the first town to experience the occupation of the
British occupation, and so by seventeen seventy they're here about
a year and a half. By March of seventeen seventy
(11:33):
they are about a year and a half. They were
out of March of sixty eight, but the other colonies
have not experienced this so much yet, and this rebellion
it's just a rebellion at this point seventeen seventy, very
early on, just a rebellion, so it hasn't really spread
to the other colonies so much. So now Sam Adams
and John Hancock, amongst their duties, is really to kind
(11:55):
of create visibility and create support from other colonies and
from other groups for this burgeoning rebeccon and so on
March fifth, seventeen seventy pretty soldier to hear about a
year and a half, not very well, like they're pushing
people around. They're their own countrymen. Everybody's British here and
(12:18):
they're their own countrymen. And they're in Boston. They're pushing
people around, they're taking up resources. They're not getting paid
a novel lot from England for their service, so they're
they're taking part time jobs and things here and there.
So on this partition. A couple of days before first
of about a week or so before the Boston massacre,
(12:39):
down at what's now the intersection of Essex and Washington
and Boylston Streets right down there in Chinatown, and there
was a what they call the Liberty Tree. There was
a tree there that some of these rebels would meet
and plan their strategies and pass in from British soldiers
(13:01):
show up at one of these meetings and fire into
the crowd and kill the seventeen year old whose name
isn't coming to me now. So first of all, you've
got that going on, so you've got a little bit
of a you've got a little motivation. A few days later,
So a week or so later, over at John Gray's
rope Walk over in Charlestown, there's a long building along
the Charlestown Navy Yard every going down to the Charlestown
(13:24):
Navy As a building, it's about a quarter mile long.
It's called the Ropewalk. Its apartments are condominiums now, but
it's called the rope Walk. They made and all the
rope for the United States Navy was made there until
nineteen seventy four. But any rate they used to make
rope there. They had these long, quarter mile long buildings
because they didn't know you could coil it at that point,
and they so British soldiers came in at some point.
(13:47):
So now there's a lot of people are working there
making rope British soldiers came in at about a week
before this incident on King Street, as the British refer
to the Boston massacre. So about a week before, some
British soldiers show up at the rope walk and they're
looking for they're looking for work, and so the foreman says, yeah,
(14:10):
you can clean they essentially the outhouses. He didn't use
quite that pleasant language. And so a big fight and started,
and you know, it was like a like an anticap
comic strip, big cloud of a big cloud of arms
and legs stick it out of it, you know, and
a big beef between the people working at the rope
(14:31):
walk and and other people along the docks there and
these British soldiers. So big fight comes along. So a
week or so later, it's a Monday night, it's a
cold Monday night. There's one British soldier. And actually we
say that it happened in front of the old State House,
because the custom House is no longer. There would be
(14:51):
about where sixty State Street is right now, all right,
a tremont or a Congress and State Street. So they
there was one loan century and uh so early in
the afternoon, uh the couple of a couple of uh
uh uh young teenagers go by there and they start
(15:15):
throwing snowballs at the soldier, and a couple of mothers
come on. They get into a little bit of a
beef and everybody's given everybody a hard time, and a
couple of these soldiers, you know, they they sort of
huh whacked. These are these kids with the with the
butts of their rifles.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
So now you just said these two things.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
The soldiers had rifles, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
All the kids from the colonies had snowballs.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
They had snowballs. So because because here's the thing, the
British had taken everybody's guns. They had taken everybody's guns.
They had no weapons. So this is what they're doing
is you know, I'm I believe that that that they're
they're they're there. This is all part of a plan.
And uh so a little while later, coming out, you know,
at nine o'clock at night on a Monday, all right,
(16:02):
it's snowing, it's cold, nobody's out. In seventeen seventy nine,
nine o'clock on a Monday, in a cold and snowy night,
all of a sudden, you know, several hundred people show
up down there and they start harassing these, you know,
the soldiers there, and then a few more come out,
total of eight soldiers come out, and so they start
(16:22):
pelting them with snowballs, rocks, coming at them with cudgels
or clubs, and so they're surrounding these eight soldiers. That
you've got eight soldiers that bags are up against a
wall somewhere three four hundred people are crushing in on
them and so a bell. So there's a lot of confusion.
(16:42):
There's a lot of yelling and a lot of things
going on. The soldiers are given the order not to
fire unless specifically ordered. They're not to fire at will.
They're supposed to wait for an order to fire. So
in the meantime, now, on a Monday night, all of
a sudden, a church in a nearby steeple starts ringing.
(17:02):
There's only two reasons why a church bell rings in
those days. One is a call the Sunday go to
meeting or other events at the church. The other is
because there's a frire. No because there's a fire. Okay,
So what happens people start yelling. So just as the
crowd is pushing in some the crowd starts yelling fire.
(17:24):
The soldiers are confused, they don't know what to do.
Matter of fact, amongst these soldiers are several of those
people who've gotten that fight down at at the rope
walk several days earlier. And so, you know, so so,
you know, and and a couple of them were what
we we call in today's you know, today's parlance, knuckleheads.
You knows, well, well big you know, a couple of
(17:45):
these soldiers with these sort of big, goofy guys, you know,
and who always willing to knuckle somebody's head anyway. And
so so at any rate, that kind of standing out
in front, sticking their chest out and things against his marble,
like three hundred people, and so they started crushing it.
The people are screaming fire. The soldiers don't know what
to do. They fire a word, they hear the word,
(18:07):
they fire into the crowd. They fire into the crowd,
and eight people had done. You said there were a
bunch of people down. You know, it takes too long
to load a musket. You wouldn't have had more than
eight people down, right, unless somebody got hit by the
same musket ball twice. So eight people are down and
u and because they're thinking that, well, first they raised
(18:28):
them muskets. They think they're going to chase away the crowd.
They think they're going to scare away the crowd by
raising them muskets. Crowd goes crazy, crowds goes wild. Now,
question is who's in this crowd now. Sam Adams and
John Hancock had a number of people who they call
their bully boys. And Sam's people were, you know, would
(18:50):
have been located more down along what we would call
the South Station area now right, and John Hancock's bully
boys would have been the people who were more down
towards the north end in Charlestown area. Okay, And so
you know, so and that covers a big area. It
really does cover a fair fair pretty big area.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So you know, you've got a lot of people down there,
and a lot of these people to see, a lot
of these people like you know, uh, these people who
worked on John Hancock on his boats if if he
didn't have work then they were making rope over it,
John Gray's rope walk and so forth and so on.
So these are all people who are actually affected by
Britain's policies. They're actually affected because they're losing work and
(19:36):
uh and you know, these these are laborers. These are
people who need the money, you know, and because there's
no other, there's no other, you know, sort of high
side hustles. We have side hustles today. You know, you
don't have the side hustles some probably, but you know,
uh they if they well there were one was side
hustle was if you're worry were they're working on a boat,
You're working making rope and uh so you know. So
(19:59):
so my question is people don't even talk about this.
Are these people Sam and John's bully boys and so
five people two people die on the spot, Christmas Addicts
and Sam Gray they die on the spot, and three
others of Patrick Carr, Samuel Maverick, and James Caldwell they
(20:22):
died over the next several days, and then several others recovered.
And they're all considered to be the first bloodshed for
the cause of the American Revolution.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Now I gotta stop. I gotta stop here for break, Okay,
but we can pick that up and for Patrick from Colorado,
you will be first. As soon as Jack Cart finishes
the story about the Boston massacre here on night side
time and temperature ten thirty one seventy nine degrees. It's
(20:55):
night Side with Dany Boston's News Dance Off. I'm here
on Morgan, don't forget. I have my showy Saturday night
at ten and Tomorrow night I'm going to be playing trivia,
having done it in a couple of months. But next Saturday,
the seventeenth scheduled and Jack, you know, you always have
(21:19):
to say that when you've got a special guest. That's right,
I've got Jerry Mathers as the beaver.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Really yes, wow, he.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Is scheduled and hopefully I'll be able to open up
the phone line. So anybody who's always wanted to speak
to Jerry Mathers, you can. I had Tony dow on
at least three occasions. He passed away within the past
year or so. But the beaver is still here. The
beaver is still here. You know, when we talk about
(21:49):
Cops Hill Burying Ground, we talk about the about some
of the people who are buried up there, including you know,
Cotton Mathers, Richard Mathers, Increased Mathers, Jerry Mathers, you know,
And I thought you were going to go in a
different direction because when you think of the Boston tea party,
the three ships were the eleanor the Dartmouth and the
(22:13):
Beaver and the beaver, the tread and the beaver. So
real quick, I'm going to have you interrupt your story
because Patrick and Colorado has been holding for like seventeen
to eighteen minutes, so let's bring him into our conversation. Patrick,
thank you for calling in. So where do you Hi there?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Hello? Patrick?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Hi Jack Jack. I want to talk about your role
in Boston history a little bit. Uh So, Tony Mesbitt,
who I'm sure you know, is Nathan's producer for many years,
and he has taken old Nor Nathan Show and made
a podcast out of him.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yeah, wonderful, fabulous listening to it. You're a huge part
of the show because you will always be on the
first the game playing.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
The dumb birthday birthday game.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
That's dumb birthday game, exactly. And it seems like you
won probably half the time I was won. If you
have any stories about norm you know at that time,
that must have been the first your first job out
of school, I guess right, because you must have been
(23:25):
you know, late twenties, right, Yes, I.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Was, and I'm just in my my early four hundreds.
Now I knew Ben Franklin. Now the I was I
was probably I was in my late twenties, exactly right.
I had done some other things. I wanted to be
in radio, but you know, you know the world I
grew up in, you know, it was always you're always
encouraged to get a good job, you know, And so
(23:52):
as much as I wanted to be in radio, I
didn't get into it until I was in my late twenties.
And and and it kind of fell out of the
sky a little bit of the truth. But I saw
I was in my late twenties, and I had my
first thing that I was doing, was working for in
those days was Metro Traffic Control, and which no longer
is are has been consumed, has been absorbed by other
(24:14):
traffic traffic companies over the years. But yeah, I was
assigned to w b Z and and the first time
that Norm and I the first time that I was
doing uh traffic on Norm show was it was just
an odd thing.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
He he.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I didn't really know so much about Norm Nay, and
I was aware of him, but I really hadn't listened
too much and he uh, he was doing the thing
he was talking on there about about the Fabulous Baker
Boys is at the name of the movie with Michelle Pfiffer,
and and he was talking about Michelle Pfeiffer singing the
song where she's on the piano. And so I don't
(24:55):
know why, but he threw traffic to me. I was
new to. I was new to at the time. I
had no there was no real reason for me to
be so brash and and brazen. But he said so
I said, a wow, what's going on over there? And
and I said, norm, I'm up on top of my
radio console here just writhing and singing. And uh so
(25:19):
from that effect, so from there on in he and
I just had this this wonderful on air chemistry. Yeah.
And and I kicked myself oftentimes but for but I
also feel regret. One of the things that I never
did was I didn't I never called up Norman and said,
(25:41):
let me take you to lunch, you know, let's let's
hang out for a while. So while we did well,
we were at several social occasions together, a couple of
birthday parties and one of two weddings, I did not
socialize with him you know, Tony Tony Nesbitt had a
great relationship with Norm, and he spent a lot of
time with him. But I did not, I did not
(26:06):
take advantage of the of the opportunity to spend any
personal time, spend any significant personal time with Norm, and
I regret that he was a wonderful person. We had
an awful lot of fun on his show with things
just happened to click. He would come up with a
with a bit and he might clue me in a
little bit about what, you know, what might be kind
(26:28):
of fun to do. Sometimes things just just happened on
the air. But people thought that we had scripted things
out and so forth, and it was just one of
those things that you know, it's one in a million
kind of situations whereby, you know, just just two people
ended up working out, working very well together and having
you know, probably more fun than I've ever had.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
And Patrick, let me tell you my quote unquote radio
career began with and through Norm Nathan.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Summer of nineteen eighty Norm was working at WHDH. I
can mention they call letters because they don't exist anymore.
But he had a Saturday evening show where he played trivia,
and he had a core of people who were everyday people,
(27:21):
not radio people, just Joe and Jane radio listeners that
could come on and interact on this show. I had
just written a book called The TV Cartoon Trivia Book,
which was my introduction into being used by Norm, and
I was one of the core of regulars Marty man Asian,
(27:47):
Bernie Corbett. I'm trying to think of the other people,
but the point of it is being on that show
led for me getting a taste of radio and loving it.
And Norm in the fall left HDH and went to
RKO and did mornings over there, and I asked him,
(28:10):
can I try to keep the trivia thing going? He said, Morgan,
do whatever you want. It's available to you. If you
think you can make it work, make it work. And
I wound up going to wun R sixteen hundred on
the AM dial, the worst time slot in radio, Monday
(28:31):
mornings two am to four am. Oh boy, that was
my time slot, my show talking trivia. Fortunately, there was
a baseball strike and that baseball strike led wits having
a lot of time to fill because they couldn't have
(28:52):
baseball no red Sox. I then shifted from un r
to its and the rest is history. And it was
because because of Norm primarily and David Brudnoy, that I
get the boost to get into the radio world of Boston.
That's the story. That's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
That's great. That was before I was in Boston. So
how long did Norm do that morning show then on
our KO Just.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
A couple of years and then he came over to BZ.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Yeah, and did he remind me, did he do just
weekend nights or weekday nights as well, because it's hard
to tell from the podcast, you know.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, he sometimes would fill in for Bob Rawley, Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Like I'm filling in now for Dan Ray.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, and I always look forward to you filling in
to Dan. I'm mad. I don't like I don't like
talking politics on the radio, and I just love your
show and love when you fill in and love when
Jack is there.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Thank you, Kinny. We try to be friends in the
night here, all right.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Patrick, thank you for your call.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, thank you guys.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
All right, enjoy the rest of your weekend, and believe
it or not, Jack, I have another break to take
so we can pick up on the end of your
Boston massacre story and then do the tour as if
you're driving the bus. Sure, if anyone else they wants
to do what Patrick just did six one, seven, two, five, four,
(30:21):
ten thirty eight, eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty
will get you through two. Here to Night's Side. I'm
filling in for Dan Ray. I'm Morgan. That's Jack Hart
and time and temperature ten forty five still seventy nine degrees.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Jack Hart is here and not telling us about the
highways and byways of Greater Boston. He's here to talk
about history. But you know what, Jack, of all the
people listening right now, Norm Nathan's daughter is listening. She
called in during the break, and I think we've put
a smile on her face hearing us say pleasant things
(31:09):
about her dad. It was a broadcasting legend.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, fifty years in the business are actually little more
than fifty years in the business.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, and nobody did radio. I mean we all put
our own unique spin on it, but nobody did radio
the way Norm did.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah. People don't you know there's sport. There are an
awful lot of people who who've been in radio over
the years, but very few get as many mentions as
Norm has. You know, people asking about memories of Norm.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yes, and he was a very pleasant man both to
know and to listen to and watch. Don't forget back
in the days of HDH having both a TV and
radio presence, he was on on Channel five periodically in
different ways, and you get to see Norm.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Yeah, he did like a real estate show. At some point,
I look at people's houses are there? And oh, you.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Do a very good Norm imitation.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Well, I listened to Norm for an awful long time,
and you know, we've got similar similar vocal qualities. Hello,
it was a little bit more imagine late I add,
you know.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
And way to go, old sporting way to go.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, we had fun.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
All right, let's we left it hanging. So let's finish
the busted massacre story and go on to other things.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Okay, So I'll quickly tell you a little bit about
some of the people who were who were killed at
the thing. So you got about three hundred people down there,
A lot of these people. It's my contention that these
were all people who worked for Sam and John and
so a Christmas attics. He was the first one killed.
So who was Christmas Atic. Christmas Atics was nearly fifty
years old at the time as late forties, was born,
(32:56):
about as old as Sam Adams at the same time.
They were both born in seventeen twenty. He was born
in Framingham and his mother was a Natick Indian and
she lived in a praying Indian town and the and
his father was a It's unclear. I've looked a number
of different sources. It's unclear whether his father was an
enslaved person or a freeman in the area. It's unclear
(33:18):
what the relationship was between the mother and the father
and Christmas. As Attics had done mister Addicks, who worked
in he had been enslaved in different places, but by
the time he by the time of the Boston massacre,
he was a free man living in There was a
black community in right around Cops Hill in the North End,
about a thousand people living in there a time, mostly
(33:39):
laborers and so and and he would work for Sam
Adams and other and other people who who owned ships
as a merchant sailor when when that work was available,
but with various sanctions and things going on, he didn't
have an awful lot of that. So we'd go across
the bridge to Charlestown over and work over at John
(34:00):
Gray's wrote rock over there, roAP factory over there, and
he was, like I said, it was nearly fifty years
old at the time. And now Sam Gray, who was there,
was probably related to John Gray, it's not clear. He
was the second person killed. He was killed right on
the spot and he had been in a different kind
of trouble before, probably because he was involved in some
(34:23):
of these little riots and things that were going on.
And so now the other three Patrick Carr was an
indentured servant from Ireland, and the other two Samuel Samuel
Maverick and James Caldwell, they were teenagers. They were seventeen
eighteen years old though, So those are the people who
were killed, and then the others who were injured. It
(34:46):
no real clear indication as to who they were. But
at any rate, so now everybody's British down there. Everybody's British.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
So John Ann, we all were British. Boston was an
extension of Britain, that's right.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
It was just England the only thing. We just didn't
have any representation in parliament, and that's what everybody was doing. Here,
and everybody was happy that building a new world essentially
for the benefit of England, and everybody was good until
until the Charles the Third came along, and George the
Third came along. George the Third. Currently it's Charles the third.
(35:21):
George the third came along, and he had the Seven
Years War that had or the French and Indian Wars
we called it around here, went into cost overruns, and
he had other financial issues over there in England. He
was very jinguistic about his British nests and kind of
thought that the people in the colonies and other places
(35:42):
were just sort of hillbillies and bumpkins, and thought that
he could stick his chest out and make all these
rules and laws. In Parliament was feeling the same way,
and so that's that's that, this is the this is
the genesis of the of the issue. Everything has caused
and effect so at any rate, now, Sam John Adams's
he's an attorney, he's a young attorney. And there's another
(36:04):
attorney in town, Josiah Quincy. And there were several Josiah
Quincy's over the course in time. But this Josiah Quincy
was a young lawyer and he didn't have enough background,
I didn't have enough experience that he felt to be
involved in the case with these with these eight soldiers,
because now these soldiers, they're they're considered to be charged with.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Murder, and they needed representations.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
They need a representation, they need a representation in court.
So John Adams I contend that he was a bit
of an opportunist and he saw an opportunity because at
seventeen seventy, this is year, this is several years before
the war itself. People are still on the fence. Most
people are still they're protesting against England. But only a
small group of these people are interested in starting a
(36:52):
new country. And John was not was not necessarily John
Adams was not necessarily interested in starting a new country.
He thought it might put him in good stead with
with with the without the England if if he uh
defended these uh eight soldiers. He's eight soldiers. So he
(37:12):
did and uh all and uh six of them were
acquitted of all charges and the other two were were
found guilty on lesser charges manslaughter charges essentially. And for
their punishment they were branded on the hand and sent
(37:33):
back to England.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Wow, and you think that Karen Reid case was busy.
That's exactly right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And so that's so that's the that is uh, that's
the Boston massacre or the incident on King Street in
a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, they didn't call it that in England. It's like
you go below the Mason Dixon line. They still don't
like the phrase of wars or be wix the states.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
That's right, that's right. Yeah. So yeah, so this was
the incident on King Street and so yeah, that was
the You know, there's a lot more to it. You
could actually talk about the Boston massacre for days on
end and debate it and dispute it.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Wow, that's giving it a good thirty five minutes. Yeah,
and I want to get back on the tour bus.
And I do want to get at least five or
six stops on the bus and brought to thirty eight
states in Canada through our discussion. So we'll get into
that next hour. Okay, but what is going to be
(38:38):
our first stop? We went out of order by jumping
up to the Boston mascer beginning at the Old State House.
But what traditionally is your first stop.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
We start out at the Long Long Wharf down near
the new England Aquarium. We'll talk about that.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
That's where we will begin. You've got to wear your
other hat, because three minutes into the news you're going
to be telling people about the highways and byways that try.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
You're going to be talking about some issues down and
near the Cape of.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Cod and compromised drivers, as you have been known to
put it. That's right, Okay, well let me get out
the way so we can begin little news, a little traffic,
a little weather here on night side. My name is Morgan.
By the way, that's Jack Hart. You should know that
by now, and I might as well just throw it
(39:33):
to Rob Brooks, who as my producer, and once I
say these magic words, he will push buttons so you'll
hear maybe a commercial or two here on night side.
Time and temperature ten fifty eight and seventy nine degrees
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!