Philbrick's In Town

I treated myself to a book and a talk by Nathaniel Philbrick at the city's main library tonight. This new one will be the seventh of his splendid historical books that I've read.

The evening was (for me) somewhat expensive, but the talk he gave about Boston at the start of the revolution was excellent, and it was good to find that the man behind all the stories is a good and likable speaker.

The icing on the cake was when he was writing in my copy of the book and I asked him, "Do you know of my ancestor Samuel Swift, the lawyer for Sam Adams?" He did know, immediately.

It was not possible to talk more about it, with a lot of people in line behind me, but this was just plain cool. Samuel Swift was an actual patriot leader and one of the 100+ people who did what is known as the "Boston Tea Party" of 1773. He was arrested during the British occupation of the city later on for having made a speech urging others not to surrender their weapons and gunpowder. He died of illness under house arrest.

I had a pleasant bike ride into town and back in clear, cool spring air as well!