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Harvey Bartlett's Store - Jabez Corner (1875)
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The New England general store was as much a community institution as the church or town hall. Familes relied on the store not only for all their commercial needs but also for many of their social ones as well. It was at the corner store that they picked up their mail, exchanged the latest gossip and haggled over a few items from jumbled diversity of the storekeeper's stock. Jabez Corner carries on this tradition as an on-line community resource. We will offer a selection of informative Web essays and exhibits, from Vanished Plymouth, which contains pictures of the town's past that we did not discover in time to include in our two Arcadia Press Images of America titles, Plymouth (2002) and Plymouth Labor and Leisure (2005) to the history of the Bahamas. You might also like to consider my new guide to Plymouth, Massachusetts (the first in many years to go beyond the simplest of detail), A Guide to Historic Plymouth, published by the History Press (2008). There is now yet another illustrated Plymouth book that photographer Jonathan Keith and I collaborated on, in which then and now views of the town's changing landscape can be compared: Plymouth Through Time (2013). Come on in, look around and sit a spell. You may find something you like. To begin, there is a brief introduction to the Corner and Jane C. Baker's The Little Town, which contains memories of Jabez Corner a century ago. If you are interested in the natural history of Plymouth, Mrs. Catherine Hedge's Wildflowers of Plymouth (1904) provides a thorough botanical survey of the town. On the Miscellaneous Shelf , you will find an assortment of articles about Plymouth and her later, post-Pilgrim history . From the University of New Hampshire Press, Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday presents the true history of this beloved American holiday, with never-before described details that puts the record straight about its centuries-long evolution—and puts to rest the question of the "First Thanksgiving"! Another book on quite a different subject has just been published by Avalonia in England: The Cunning Man's Handbook — my study of the folk magic of England & America between 1550 and 1800. 555 pages of analysis and long examples (in rather small print) of what the historical "white witches" actually were up to, as opposed to the myths that surround the subject. There are now two additional titles published in December, 2020. In respect of the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower arrival at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, I have written a short but complete history of the famous Plymouth Rock entitled Plymouth Rock's Own Story, which can be ordered from the Pilgrim Society.
In addition, there is also a collection of essays on how the passengers on the Mayflower became the world-famous "Pilgrim Fathers" and hailed as the symbolic progenitors of the United States, Made in America: The Pilgrim Story and How It Grew. This study is an examination of the historic realities, common representations, memorials and popular myths surrounding the history of the Plymouth colonists. It can be ordered from the General Society of Mayflower Descendants
© 2001 James W. Baker Updated October 4, 2016 jimwbaker@comcast.net [note: new email - Adelphia has died] |