Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum

Located just off the Congress Street Bridge in historic Boston, is a floating museum unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. The little known fact is that the current museum floating in the Fort Point Channel is roughly only a few hundred yards from where the Tea Party took place on December 16,1773. 

Authentic tea ships, live actors, high-tech interactive exhibits, multi-sensory documentary called “Let it Begin Here,”  and an original tea crate from the Boston Tea Party are just part of the experience. 

After entering a town hall style room we are each given the identity of a early American revolutionist and a feather to use as a symbol to others fighting the English that we are part of the cause. Next we participated conversation with Samuel Adams who explained that they offered Governor Hutchinson an opportunity to send the three tea ships back to England with their cargo but he refused and said they must be offloaded before returning back to England.

He also used his words to enrage the crowd calling on one such colonist asking James Brewer how he managed to pay for the new windows he needed on his house.  With the Townshend Acts in place he revealed that it was at the cost of feeding his family. 

After a spirited debate about what to do we headed down the gang plate towards the Eleanor, one of three ships that were in Boston Harbor that fateful night, where we boarded and systematically destroyed every tea crate. During the destruction one revolutionist was  knocked unconscious. That identity belonged to Grace's mother.  Try thought that he was dead and brought him to a barn to be buried the next day only to find him in the pub the following morning.

The Eleanor was a small and very cramped ship where crew shared the hold with its cargo. Before disembarking the historic vessel we each took the opportunity to throw a crate of tea into the harbor. 

Once off the ship we entered the museum its self where observed a discussion between two colonist woman. One a Tory and one a rebel arguing their perspectives. It was a riveting example of the opposing perspectives in the colonies. 

Next we entered the portrait gallery where one of only two surviving crates from the Boston Tea Party is on display.  The Robinson Half Chest as it is known washed up in the salt marshes where it was saved by a young man who hid it away to protect against any loyalist reprisals before it got passed along many generations before being given to the museum for display. Next like the portrait hall of Hogwarts the portraits of John Handcock and King George III came to life as the corresponded about the affairs of the colonies. 

Next we enjoyed the multi sensory "Let It Begin Here" presentation recalling the ride of Paul Revere, the Battle of Lexington and Concord and thus the start of the revolution. Once done we exited into the Tea house where visitors could sample the various blends of tea that were destroyed. While I didn't sample any of the tea I did enjoy a cinnamon scone fresh from the oven.  
 

NYC High Line

The HighLine was built by the New York City Railroad between 1929 and 1934 to eliminate the dangers of street level city rail traffic.  The elevated trains carried meats, produce and dairy to warehouses and factories at the third floor level and the route became known as the "Life Line of New York".

In 1999 a group of community residents rallied to safe the decaying structure. Today the HighLine is an urban oasis along Manhattan's West Side. The elevated track is now a city park winding its way through the trendy Chelsea and Meat Packing District where apartments go for between 2 and 20 million USD. It's tracks still remain but are now part of a mixed surface of wood, concrete and stone walk ways surrounded by lush green areas filled with grass, flowers, fountains, art installations and viewing platforms allowing visitors great views down many of the cities streets. 

We started at W 34th street. The path looped along the Henry Hudson Parkway until it went up W 30th St. We followed it all the way to the end at Gansevoort Street where we had a delicious lunch in the Gansevoort Market before making the track back to W 34th street.  Its a great venue to relax and enjoy on a summer day.

Mapparium @ Christian Science Center

Located in the Christian Science Center’s Mary Baker Eddy Library is an amazing 3 story tall glass globe. Inspired by architect Chester Lindsay Churchill to represent the Christian Science Monitor’s global awareness and reach he constructed this 30-foot diameter glass globe based on the Rand McNally Political map of the time.

It is frozen in time in 1935 when Thailand was known as Siam and much of Africa was under colonial rule. The globe is made of 608 stained glass panels and was designed to allow the countries to be viewed in accurate geographical relationship to each other.

Guests of the Mapparium are grouped together in small batches and taken into the mapparium for a 20 minute long stay where they enjoy a light and sound show. Guests walk across a glass bridge suspended in the middle of the globe where it’s unusual acoustics allow visitors voices to be amplified.

They do not allow pictures from within the globe since the map is copyrighted by Rand McNally but I couldn’t resist sneaking a few for my blog. It’s a great location to visit and see what the world looked like in 1935.

Sons of Liberty Spirits Company

Mike Reppucci, founder of South Kingstown’s Sons of Liberty Spirits Company recently gave us a tour of his 3,100 square foot distillery where he craft's superb whiskies, vodka's and the occasional beer. It was the first tour of the day for Sons of Liberty and thankfully there was a limited number visitors in attendance.

The distillery was as you would expect a warehouse feel with the walls lined with barrels of whiskey surely aging to perfection. In the corner a tasting bar with many of their varietals ready for the end of the tour and another room where all the magic happens loaded with all kinds of equipment.

Mike welcomed us to his distillery and explained how he got his start 5 years ago. He explained that he does things different then most distilleries. He got his start as a student in London who went on a series of scotch tours where they explained to him that scotch is a distillers beer. Scotch is whiskey made in Scotland. Whiskey starts as a beer. Its a non-hopped un-boiled beer that has been distilled. He thought and asked why he has never heard of a stout beer whiskey or a Belgian whisky or any seasonal whiskey.

One of their whiskey's is called Uprising which is a stout beer turned into a single malt whiskey. They also make Battle Cry which is a Belgian beer turned whiskey.

They also do seasonal whiskeys like their pumpkin spice whiskey in the fall and an IPA whiskey in the summer. When he started everyone thought that he had no idea what he was doing but 15 gold medal winners and worlds best from Whiskey Magazine for the pumpkin spice. That distinction made them the first craft brewer to win that distinction.

When he returned from school in London he trained with the master distiller from Makers Mark. While there he learned all the tricks of bourbon makers. He choose to do it a little differently to produce a smoother products. They start at the mash lauder ton using a darker roast barley. Next they move to the mash to the fermenters where they are temperature controlled. topping out at 70-75 degrees for 2 weeks. That gives them a better flavor. They focus on the flavors instead of volume. Most have a three day fermentation cycle.

There are one of two distillers that temperature control. Next they move to the still which they use 250 gallon Vendome stills. they strip the beer to 30% alcohol and then double distill to only 120 proof. that keeps the product clean but flavorful. Each time you distill you are cleaning out a lot more of the product. anything to 190 proof is vodka. 1,000 gallons of beer yields 90 gallons of whiskey.

In their spirit safe there is three compartments where they remove the heads and tails keeping just the hearts. The heads and tails should not be consumed. He trusts his pallet versus testing the product. He said that the heads taste like jolly rancher green apple notes and when that dissipates then he cuts to the hearts. When the product becomes oily then he cuts again to remove the tails.

Then they barrel the products into fired oak barrels. That helps them add more complexity to their product. He also showed us how they can use the same still to make vodka.

After learning the process we moved onto the bar where we tried four different whiskey's. We tried Uprising and Battle Cry as well as their two seasonal whiskey's Pumpkin Spice and their Summer Seasonal. Then we sampled three of their vodkas. Plain, Vanilla and Mint Cucumber. I enjoyed the vanilla and mint cucumber.

I will be honest that whiskey isn't really my thing and I found most of them very harsh and bitter. This isn't specific to Sons Of Liberty as I feel this way about all whiskey. I will admit that I did enjoy their beer's I loved the brewed Battle Cry Beer. On our way out I picked up one of their cool t-shirts and Dan picked up a bottle of Battle Cry for his father. Grace like me got a t-shirt. 

Harvard Museum of Natural History & Peabody Museum

Located on the grounds of Harvard University is one of the more impressive natural history museums in the country. The Museum of Comparative Zoology, The Harvard Mineralogical and Geological Museum and the Harvard University Herbaria combined in 1998 to form the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Its combined collection represents 1 of the 4 Harvard Museums of Science and Culture and is the most visited attraction at Harvard.

The galleries house the historic Blaschka glass models of plants, popularly known as the Glass Flowers. This is where we started our visit. The room was lined with case after case of delicate examples of many different flowers and fauna from around the world carefully created using glass. Each flower included a full scale replica and then bisected versions showing each piece that make up each flower.  It was an impressive collection. Some of my favorites included the Mayan pitcher plant and others like the mountain laurel which surround my childhood home.

 

 

 

 



The next room we entered was the Arthropods where their collection of mounted beetles was impressive. I really am fascinated by the colorful exteriors of these little creatures.  In addition to the beetles they have an exhibit of skulls from the Hominin Family including everything from a Homo Habilis skull dating back to 1.4-2.3 million years ago to the current Homo sapiens. It was a interesting display showing the evolution of our species.

 

Next we made our way into one the special exhibitions. Thoreau’s Maine Woods was a photographic journey through Maine as seen through the lens of Scot Miller’s camera as he retraced the footsteps of Thoreau.  It paired some specimens from the Museum’s collection that fit with what might have been seen in Maine.  The photographs really captured the beauty, power and serenity of the deep woods of Maine. Almost makes you want to visit and explore much like Thoreau did.

Moving on we explored yet another special exhibit called Mollusk's: Shelled Masters of the Marine Realm. This collection of shells small and large showed the complexity of their hard outer shell that protect their soft inner bodies.

In comparison to the mostly small mollusk next we moved to the Vertebrate Paleontology/ Dinosaur Romer Hall where we were immediately greeted by a gigantic freshwater turtle shell. This room also included many mounted examples of creates long gone such as the edaphosaurus and the larges mounted Kronosaurus whose menacing teeth would have definitely kept me out of the water.  He could swallow most animals whole in a single bite.

We also got to see the famed Harvard Mastodon whose large tusks surely made him an impressive fighter in his day.

 

Paired nicely with the Glass Flowers exhibit is a new exhibition called Sea Creatures in Glass which display’s some of Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology's collection of Blaschka models of marine invertebrates.  These too showed the skilled craftsmanship of Leopold Blaschka. These were probably my favorite having ground up on long island sound and every year dodging the many jelly fish that call the sound home. I was particularly impressed with the delicacy of the Portuguese Man o’ War and the curled octopus.

 

Next we explored the Africa gallery which seemed to include nearly one of every single animals from the African planes like the gemsbok, spotted hyena, serval, to the more well-known big game varietals like the lion, warthog, leopard, zebras and hippos, and rhino . I really appreciated seeing a serval since I have two Savannah’s which a mix between a serval and a mainecoon cat. 

 

A departure from the wilds of Africa and closer to home was the New England Forests in the Zofnass Family Gallery exhibit. It included many of the creatures we find in our back yard like the gray squirrel, white tailed deer and the moose to the more sinister grey wolf.  It also included some of the smaller creatures like the Northern Red Necked Snake and their pray the Eastern Red Backed Salamander. Not only did it display the animals and retiles found here but also many of the natural fauna that provides these animals with shelter and life.

The next room we entered was the Great Mammal Hall and Balcony of Birds. Here some of the biggest creatures on the planet can be found. There are three different whales hanging above and they include the Sperm Whale, Fin Whale and the North Atlantic Right Whale. While they hang majestically above below are some of the more interesting mammals like armadillos, bats, hedgehogs, squirrels monkeys, Ostriches, bison, and even many of the hominins. Above the mammals on the Balcony are tons of different bird varietals. It was an impressive collection of birds and included many we know and love like the robin and sandpiper to the more exotic kingfisher and tropical birds.

 

We made our way back towards the beginning to move on to the Earth and Planetary Sciences collection where the mineralogical galleries present a systematic display of meteorites, minerals and gemstones.  One of the most impressive features of the collection is the 1,600lbs amethyst geode from Brazil and the Shards of Gypsum from Mexico. The room really was an impressive collection of all kind of weird and unusual rock’s and minerals. Some of my favorites was the Beryl with is vivid blue color and translucency like ice.

 

After the mineralogical galleries we made our way to the attached but separate Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. The two museums join on the third floor and link to the Latin American and Special Exhibit galleries. As we entered they were preparing the special exhibit called Arts of War collection of weapons across culture.

They had some amazing suits of amour made from unlikely materials.  They also had a collection of Mace's, Shield's & Club's nothing was yet identified but it certainly was a cool collection

Just outside the Arts of War was the Latin American galleries. The main gallery featured the Encounters with the America’s gallery which featured several stela’s and a large alter all surrounded by diorama’s of the different Indians and their standard villages. It was very cool to see how many of the different tribes built their shelters’

 

They also had a day of the dead exhibit which represents the Aztec origins of the holiday and the Catholic symbols incorporated into the tradition, from skeletons to plush Jesus figures. Originating with the Aztecs, the Mexican Day of the Dead is a unique blend of Mesoamerican and Christian rituals. The holiday, which is celebrated on November 1, All Saints’ Day, is usually dedicated to children; November 2, All Souls’ Day, is dedicated to adults.With that we went past the gift show where I purchased a blue Day of the Dead colorful cranium ornament to add to my Christmas tree.

Next we went up first to the 4th floor to the Pacific Islands Galleries where I saw many things similar to what I had seen in Hawai’i. I was most fascinated by the collection of weapons they had made from sharks teeth.

Last we went to the first floor where the Native American galleries were as well as another special exhibit called the Penobscot Canoes: A view from the river. This gallery included a large totem and other artifacts of those Indians who used the Penobscot as a transportation tool for their canoes.