ANTIQUARTO

Brenton Simons on history, genealogy, collecting, and the arts

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Honoring an American legend: bestselling author David McCullough

Honoring an American legend: bestselling author David McCullough

On Friday, April 27, 2018 the New England Historic Genealogical Society will present Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough with our Lifetime Achievement Award in History & Biography in a dinner at the Fairmont Copley Hotel in Boston. I will confer upon him a detailed history of his family and reveal a few genealogical surprises and bestselling author Stacy Schiff will moderate a conversation with David about his books, life, and personal interests. Join us for this r

Kidnapped heiresses: from Patty Hearst to the Mackintosh sisters of Boston

Kidnapped heiresses: from Patty Hearst to the Mackintosh sisters of Boston

Having written about kidnapped heiresses in the colonial period, I was interested to delve into a modern case and so watched CNN's limited series, "The Radical Story of Patty Hearst," which concluded last night, with great interest. For Patty Hearst, a granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, her 1974 kidnapping was lengthy and brutal, full of violent crimes in which she participated, and marked by her apparent conversion to the side of her captors, the Sy

L'Enfant's breathtaking diploma created for the Society of the Cincinnati

L'Enfant's breathtaking diploma created for the Society of the Cincinnati

Pictured: a parchment diploma of the Society of the Cincinnati signed by George Washington and Henry Knox. Author's collection. The Society of the Cincinnati, an order named after Roman Consul Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, was founded in 1783 by Henry Knox and others to preserve the ideals and fellowship of officers of the Continental Army who served in the Revolutionary War. George Washington served as the society's first president and early members of the organization were

A future princess and a cheetah

A future princess and a cheetah

HRH Princess Michael of Kent, author of "A Cheetah's Tale." Copyright John Swannell. Courtesy of Bradt Travel Guides. One of the most charming and sensitively written books I have read in a very long time is "A Cheetah's Tale" by HRH Princess Michael of Kent (Bradt Travel Guides 2017). The setting of this touching memoir is Mozambique in the early 1960s when a seventeen-year old Marie Christine von Reibnitz visited her father's farm there - a magical place where she encounter

The Crom Castle experience

The Crom Castle experience

Pictured: Crom Castle, near Newtownbutler, co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, home of the Earl of Erne. In 2017, I was delighted to welcome John Crichton, the 7th Earl of Erne and Baron of Fermanagh, who presides over Crom Castle, his ancestral home in the heart of Northern Ireland's Lake District, to the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston. Crom Castle will be recognized by attentive viewers of P.G. Wodehouse's "Blandings," televised on the BBC, which filmed t

A bust of the great Boston historian Walter Muir Whitehill

A bust of the great Boston historian Walter Muir Whitehill

In 2016, I was approached by sculptor Marcia Zonis who wished to donate a superb 1971 plaster bust of Walter Muir Whitehill (1905-1978), the eminent Boston historian and library director, to the New England Historic Genealogical Society, an institution where he had presided as chairman of the board many years earlier. The artist made two copies of this bust: one is found in the collections of the Boston Athenaeum and this one was kept by Zonis as a token of her friendship wit

The Adams Homestead

The Adams Homestead

Pictured: Doorway of John Adams birthplace. The first member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in 1845 was the former President of the United States, John Quincy Adams. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Adams homestead and birthplace, a National Park with houses of both John Adams and John Quincy Adams, in Quincy, Massachusetts. The National Park Service maintains the properties and you can find out more information on the history of these dwellings a

Visiting with the Society of Colonial Wars and other friends in Palm Beach

Visiting with the Society of Colonial Wars and other friends in Palm Beach

Pictured: Brenton Simons at a dinner of the Florida Society of Colonial Wars, Palm Beach, Florida. One of our most distinguished partners at the New England Historic Genealogical Society is the General Society of Colonial Wars, a hereditary society initially formed in New York in 1892 “for the purpose of further interest in, and study of, America’s Colonial history for the period between the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia (in) 1607 and the Battle of Lexington (in) 1775.” I