Maritime Collections Tour

CLA Archivist Zachary Bodnar led this tour exploring tales of those who left Boston by sea.

Boston’s maritime history is long and rich, and the Congregational Library & Archives’ collections speak to this unique Boston story. This tour will feature diaries, newspaper articles, and other firsthand accounts of voyages by sea from those departing Boston to distant lands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From the journals of missionaries departing Boston for Turkey, to images of the Morning Star, a Boston-built ship destined for Hawai’i, this tour is sure to captivate all who look towards the sea with awe.

Held in the CLA’s historic reading room at 14 Beacon Street, these monthly collection tours connected residents of Beacon Hill and the greater Boston region with original, rarely seen materials in the CLA’s collections.

This event ran from 12 to 1 pm and began with a short talk by Zachary Bodnar, followed by plenty of time for browsing items from our collections and asking questions.

Thanks to the generosity of the Beacon Hill Civic Association, these programs were offered completely free of charge to the public.