Stonington Historical Society Book Party

The Stonington Historical Society has published a new book by a local genealogist, Henrietta Mello Mayer. The book, “South of the Cannons, the Portuguese Families of Stonington, Connecticut,” has been a long-time project of the author, who was born on Omega Street in the community she writes about, the southern portion of Stonington Borough when it was a primarily Portuguese neighborhood.  This new version of a book she published privately in 1978 is richly illustrated with photographs, some never put between covers before.

The Historical Society will celebrate the book with a party on March 10, at 11 a.m. at the Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer House, 40 Palmer Street in Stonington. A second party will be held on Saturday, April 14, at 11 a.m. at the Portuguese Holy Ghost Club at 26 Main Street in Stonington. On both occasions, books will be sold and Mrs. Mayer will autograph copies. The refreshments will include Portuguese sweet bread from Lou’s Bakery in Fall River, Mass.

Mrs. Mayer, along with compiling genealogies, read page by page through original issues of The Stonington Mirror, a now vanished local paper, from 1870 to 1948. She selected hundreds of items about the Portuguese families who lived mostly in the compact neighborhood south of Cannon Square. This entertaining chronology, now illustrated, covers the waterfront and then some: the launching of fishing smacks, factory accidents, activities of the local bands, a gift for the train conductor, births and deaths, parades for the Festa do Espirito Santo – the Holy Ghost Festival – challenges to checker games and fistfights, graduations, concerts and arrests, big scallop harvests and, yes, a blue lobster.

Mrs. Mayer’s book includes new material derived from the microfilm files of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints as well as data from the Azores going back to the seventeenth century, and U.S. census returns. The new edition was prepared by James Boylan and Betsy Wade, who earlier edited “The Davis Homestead” and the Society’s four volumes of the Ramsbotham Editions. “South of the Cannons” is indexed. The cost is $25.

To order the book direct from the Historical Societym, use this link: www.stoningtonhistory.org, then go to the tab for buying books.