No one escape at the attention of Boston; if a person lived there, worked there, died there and meant something for the city and its citizens won't never be forgotten.
When I discovered: Robert Love's Warnings Searching for Strangers in Colonial Boston by Cornelia H.Dayton and Sharon V. Salinger, published by Pennsylvania University Press I thought: I must read it! Robert Love was surely someone for Boston and Bostonians, because he was a warner.
Who was a warner?
When the pilgrims arrived in New England, they tried all their best for keeping, preserving the town of Boston cleaned from the arrival of unwanted people.
People, substantially, without money, without work, and possibly bringing infections.
What administrators wanted to do, was, also, to try to keep cleaned the surrounding areas from folk and settlements of poor.
Poor were considered a weight and a danger because they could bring with them dangerous virus, and they meant wasting money; they were not in grade to provide at their own health with a proper job.
Mr. Love did this job: he visited landlords, taverns, inns in a daily base, under the rain, snow, good weather, winter, spring, sometimes also during the Christmas's Day! adding everyday meticulously, with great precision, what he saw and if there were newcomers in the city.
If he found newcomers, they were formally invited to leave the city in 15 days.
Love was precise: like a radar he intercepted newcomers immediately; the first day of their arrival in the 69% percentage of the cases.
Questions were the most common ones: if they were single or married, if they had a work, if they lived in a house with someone, because invited or because of a work, if they were arrived from sea or land, and if via sea, the name of the ship and the one of the captain.
Warners like Love could also warn women for their inopportune behaviors.
There were problems with black men; white women and men could marry Indian people.
But: this order of leaving the city was so imperative?
No: the city was flexible and in some cases, when economy was strongest, there were no problems for newcomers; people with the desire of building an existence in Boston were more than accepted; but, in particular when economical situation was not the best one, rigidity, mixed at religious belief, induced the administrators at keeping the city cleaned from dishonest, inmates, poor, marginalized people, disabled, women with a doubt reputation, children.
The story of Robert Love is intriguing. Irish, he afforded to Boston and worked in various fields before to be a "guardian" of the city.
The work was simple: more people he would have discovered and warned, more money he would have earned in a daily base.
So, this frugal man worked a lot, and once dead he accumulated for his children and beloved ones a little fortune.
At that time the departure of a person was just signaled in the local newsmagazine, but the obituary of Robert Love, if compared to the other ones resonated for importance; The Newsletter published it.
Boston, was and still is another "door" for searching for a best future: there was and there is the port; people in the past could arrive from the South of the USA, or from Europe in search of fortune.
There are in this book many examples of people warned with their stories of misery and problems.Captivating, interesting, a real jewel if you love history and the past, this one is not just a portrait of mr.Love but of a city, Boston, and its past customs and traditions, including the ones of a lot of European cities for keeping cleaned their cities from potential newcomers.
Informative but very readable by everyone, I highly suggest you this book because written with love, passion and with the desire of sharing with competency and brilliant writing-style an important, little, big part of the story of a city, Boston, and one of its citizen; Boston during the centuries has always made the difference, in a way or in another.
I love the cover, warm and friendly.
I thank Pennsylvania University Press for the physical copy of this book.
:-)
Anna Maria Polidori
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