Newspaper Skill Challenge

Comments (8)

• Janice,
  As regards the street number – yes, you are correct. I have revised my answer to reflect that.
  As for the Massachusetts land records on FamilySearch – there are two sections to FamilySearch- the indexed records and the unindexed records. The land records are unindexed so you will not find them in a search.
  But you can find them in the main list of available Massachusetts records. You will need to “browse” through these records. You can find them here – https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2106411
  You will find the index listing I referred to here: https://tinyurl.com/y4s4j7nw
  And the original deed here: https://tinyurl.com/y4hkfw8l
  Marian

• Another question – I wasn’t able to find the deed you referred to. You stated that Family Search had lots of Massachusetts land records but I only found links outside of Family Search to the Massachusetts records.

• I have one disagreement/question: The “72” is not the house number but the order of visitation. The House Number field is empty and I understand that many enumerators did not fill this out but just used the street name.

• Thanks! It was great fun looking up this info.

• Michael,
  You get an A+ for your answers!
  Marian

• 1) Massachusetts. The original article was published by the Boston Traveler. (Somerville is near Boston.)
  2) 100 Cedar Ave … from 1881 Somerville City Directory. Several other directories and his newspaper death notices say he lived at the corner of Cedar & Highland.
  3) Daughters Emily (28) and Catherine (20) are listed in the 1870 U.S. census.
  4) His wife Mary C. (50) and son Henry A. (18) are also listed in the 1870 U.S. Census.
  5) “en deshabille” means partially or shabbily clothed, a state of undress. It was fashionable to use French words/phrases at that time.
  6) Henry L. Gurney was a pilot … which would be a ship’s pilot in those days. (The 1881 Somerville City Directory gives his workplace address as 41 Lewis Wharf.)
  A long obituary on page 4 of the Jan. 8, 1892, Boston Globe said that in 1870 Gurney had been chosen secretary of the Boston Pilots Relief Society and five years later its president. “For five consecutive years he represented Boston and New York pilots in the nations capitol …” Presumably, representing/lobbying for his profession and colleagues was the reason for his trip to D.C. that resulted in his absence from his home on that fateful night. (https://www.newspapers.com/image/430733496/)
  7) The Globe obituary mentions Gurney’s “wide and pleasant estate” on the corner of Cedar St. and Highland Ave. A look at Google Streetview shows relatively modern commercial buildings on all four corners.
  Somerville’s 1906 Annual Report mentions on page 329 that “The city has lost the use of the Gurney estate, situated at the corner of Highland avenue and Cedar street, which has been maintained as a playground, the owners refusing the use of same, and a sewer has been constructed on this property for the drainage of house lots.” (https://archive.org/stream/annualreportofci1906some/annualreportofci1906some_djvu.txt)
  Checking Zillow.com records for several (but not all) houses near the corner of Cedar & Highland show “dates built” only as early as 1910 and 1920. So I’m thinking that the home is no longer standing (on its original site, at least). I have not found anything that says the home had been moved to another site.

• This looks like a fun exercise and you have good questions! But I don’t have time for this now and probably won’t before you publish the answers. Maybe I’ll try to avoid looking at them and see if I can do it later. Thanks for the exercise!

• Mass.
  105 Cedar
  1870 census
  Emily, Catherine
  Mary, Henry A.
  undressed, more polite term
  Asst. pilot
  No idea