Coyotes and CoyWolves in Quincy? Oh My!

Dr. Jon Way. Photos Courtesy of Jon Way and EasternCoyoteResearch.com

Speaker 1: From the city of presidents, it’s the all about Quincy podcast. This is your host, John Melley. Join me as we explore the history, hidden gems and highlight the businesses with great stories that I’ll tell the tale like Quincy, Massachusetts is a great place to live.

Speaker 1: Hey, there is John, how are you Thanks for spending some time with me. I do appreciate it. Welcome to this episode of the all about Quincy podcast, where we are discussing coy wolves. Yes. A mixture of coyote and Wolf. My guest today is going to explain why that’s, what we’re seeing all around town. My guest today is John Way. He is an expert in coyotes wolves, coy wolves, smart guy knows a lot of stuff. And the reason I had Jon on the show was that I’m seeing all kinds of stuff on social media. And I think nextdoor.com and facebook.com and Instagram from the Quincy police department and other things about coyote sightings around the city. And, I’ve seen them, myself walking my dogs up at Faxon park. I know they’re in the cemetery as well. And so I thought, you know, there’s a lot of folks talking about coyotes and questions about them, and I thought let’s get a pro on their show.

Speaker 1: You see what I did there I did a little rhyme before we get to my interview with John. I just want to invite you to reach out and contact us. Just go to allaboutQuincypodcast.com. Enter your first name and email address. Let us know what you think about the show. What would you like to talk about I’ve got a lot of cool stuff coming up. October is national pizza month and I’m interviewing pizza shop owners, pizza restaurants around the city to celebrate national pizza month. So that’s coming up. Those shows are in production. Reach out to us, let us know what you’d love to hear about. Just go to all about Quincy podcast.com, upper right-hand corner, click the contact us button. Just give us your first name, your email address and what you’d like to hear about any comments or feedback, all this that the other thing reach out. We’d love to hear from you. All right. So let’s go talk to the coyote expert Jon Way.

Speaker 1: Well, as I said in the beginning of this episode, my guest today is Dr. John Way, who has his bachelor of science from UMass Amherst, his master of science from the university of Connecticut stores and his doctorate from Boston college. And the reason why I have John on the podcast with me today is that as I’ve said in previous episodes, I have a couple of dogs. I walk around a Quincy with them. We spent a lot of time up at facts in park, and I know there are coyotes in facts and park, but other dog owners talk to me about coyotes. And I saw coyote today, or other people will be talking about that. They saw a coyote running down the street in the neighborhood, and I thought, you know what There’s an awful lot of interest in coyotes. Let’s get someone who’s an expert on coyotes. And so John, through the power of Google, I found you and I found out you’re a fellow UMass grad. And so I said, I want to talk to this guy, how are you today

Speaker 3: I’m great. Thanks. Thanks for having me, John.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s great to have you here. It’s a topic that a lot of people that I meet walking my dogs, Zoe and Quinn, around the neighborhood and in facts and park in particular, and also see a lot of talk about it on, are you familiar with the app nextdoor.com

Speaker 3: Yeah. So I’m not engaged in it too much, but I certainly know it. Yes.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So there’s a lot of people talking about coyotes. There’s a mixed bag of conversation. There’s all watch out for coyotes and there’s coyotes. They’re everywhere. They’ve been with us for years. Don’t worry about it. They’re more afraid of you than you are of them. And so I thought let’s get an expert here to talk about coyote behavior, and just anything that you can tell us about coyotes in an urban setting,

Speaker 3: Eastern coyote that we have living here, not just in Quincy, but all of the Northeast from essentially kind of the New Jersey, mid Atlantic area, all the way up into Southern Canada. So that would include all the Northeast, including Maine and New Hampshire is actually technically a coyote Wolf hybrid. the ant the animals about, 60 to 65% coyote, which would be kind of the Western variety of coyote. And then roughly 25, maybe 30% a Wolf. And interestingly, there’s two different wolves native to the Northeast. And this Eastern coyote seems to have both some gray Wolf genes and some Eastern Wolf genes. But the bottom line is it’s about 25 to 30% Wolf, meaning that the genes found in this Eastern coyote about 25 to 30% of it is not found in Western coyotes. Then the other interesting thing is they have about 10% dog DNA and the men we’re not, not really quite sure how dog DNA got into a wild animal because typically a domestic animal doesn’t do too well if it’s back across to the wild, but quite clear, quite clearly, they were able to survive.

Speaker 3: And, now they kind of breed true. So it’s not like we have Western coyotes, wolves and dogs currently breeding. This is what made the animal around a hundred years ago, maybe 70 years ago, as I got to the Northeast. And then we kind of have this animal breeding with each other, but there are certainly a bigger animal. they’re more robust, they’re bigger basically in every direction and every dimension, excuse me than a Western coyote, but they’re also a little bit smaller, not surprisingly than a Wolf. And so where the term coy Wolf comes from. And I just wrote a book and it’s, it’s freely online. If anybody’s interested in it. I have a website, Eastern coyote research.com. And I have a section in the book section on the website called coy Wolf book. And it describes a lot of what we’re talking about here today.

Speaker 3: And I made it as an ebook to make it more accessible than my typical print books. So that’s just kind of a real basic to the animal. A lot of people get confused when they hear the terms, but essentially coy Wolf is a synonym for the Eastern coyote. We have living here in Massachusetts and all of the Northeast for that matter. a lot of people get confused and they say, Hey, we have coyotes around here, but I saw this big animal. Was it a coil And you’re kind of saying the same thing because the animals in Quincy are those hybrids. Most people in the Northeast call them coyotes. But if you look anywhere else in the country, besides the Eastern United States, especially the Northeast, the United States, these animals look a lot different. And that’s because Western counties are a lot smaller. They don’t have the Wolf genes that these Eastern Kyrie or coils have. So the toy Wolf kind of comes directly from that. it doesn’t change what the animal is in what we’re going to talk about, but it does just kind of, it is an important point because I get that question quite frequently in many different areas is, is, is this animal equivalent for they’re all coils here in Massachusetts Most people just call them Eastern coyotes or simply coyotes.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s what I do. I say, oh, there’s coyotes.

Speaker 3: Exactly. So it’s good to just know their background because for instance, we used to have cougars here in Massachusetts, believe it or not. Unfortunately I love them. They got killed off and out west they’re most commonly called mountain lions, right in many parts of the world, cause they live all the way down to the Southern tip of Argentina. They’re called Pumas, especially in kind of Spanish speaking areas, Pumas common. And then they’re also called Panthers or Florida Panthers in Florida, but that’s all the same species which are also called cougars or mountain lions. So, you know, it’s really not too surprising that in the animal that has such a range and then this hybrid might be called something else besides just coyote. So Eastern coyote, coy Wolf coyote here in new England, that’s kind of referring to the same creature. So we have

Speaker 1: Koi walls that are, when we see what we call a coyote in Quincy, Massachusetts, it’s really a coy Wolf. Genetically tell us about their typical behavior. And if somebody sees a coyote or a coy Wolf, what do they do What’s their typical behavior Do they hunt at night You hear these things. If you see a skunk or a raccoon during the daytime, you should be concerned because they, that’s not their normal behavior pattern. What’s a typical behavior pattern for a coyote here in the Quincy area.

Speaker 3: First of all, they’re very successful around people. That’s kind of obvious. And a lot of people get confused by that, but where you have natural habitat and then even in suburban areas, those are actually really good habitats. And suburban areas actually is really good. Wildlife habitat. You have a high density of prey. In fact, you generally have more prey animals in some suburbs than you do in wild areas. And it’s not just because of lack of hunting, although that’s part of the reason human hunting that is there’s also, a lot more food for those animals. People don’t think so, but our backyards have all of these plants that are deer height, as opposed to the forests that have, you know, 50 to a hundred foot Oaks. Even though those certainly provide food for deer, no question about it, but especially animals like rabbits and turkeys that do really well with this mixed habitat.

Speaker 3: And so where you have an abundance of prey, you typically have predators that do pretty well too. So we’ve had fishers move into this area. Black bears are moving east by the year when I was at UMass, they were mostly in Western mass, 20 years later. They’re now well-established in central mass and starting to reach Eastern mass as a population, not just as individuals which do get here regularly. Obviously I don’t recommend feeding animals. That’s not a good thing. You want to keep them wild, but even just in our normal habitat structure, without feeding them, we provide a lot of food for these animals in terms of natural habitat. Natural. I kind of have my air quotes out because sometimes natural is humans cutting things down and having vegetation, but basically provide a lot of vegetation for animals like deer rabbits and typical Eastern coyote and other predator foods.

Speaker 3: And so that’s kind of the first setting of the stage is we provide a lot of food for prey. And then of course, if there’s a lot of prey, we provide that food for the predators that might eat them. Of course, like Eastern coyotes. The other thing is Eastern coyotes are super successful around people and it might be for reasons that we don’t think of they’re actually super successful around people because they avoid us. They do well near us, but they also typically avoid us. And people might say, well, I see them all the time. Statistically, they’re really avoiding us. And some of the ways that they avoid us are kind of through questions that you asked me. the first way that they avoid us is even if you see them during the daytime, all the animals I’ve ever studied in the wild are more active at night than they are during the daytime.

Speaker 3: So if you look at, if you look at it, statistically, you might see them during the day and I’m not including animals that get habituated to people. It’s never a good idea to feed wild animals, especially predators that could potentially harm people because then they can, a lot of animals don’t change their behavior, but a lot of animals will change their behavior. I’m talking more about the animals that are behaving naturally feeding on natural prey items. Like I just mentioned, they’re typically active at night and I’ve just found over the years, but it just seems easier for them to be active night, to avoid people. And for instance, go through your neighborhood wherever you live. If it’s urban, suburban drive through your neighborhood or walk through your neighborhood and look at all the front bushes in your neighbor’s yards. Well, those front bushes you might laugh at during the daytime saying that’s not wildlife habitat.

Speaker 3: Who’s going to live there besides maybe a rabbit under there, but at night nighttime, I’ve seen coyotes literally hide behind those bushes as cars drive by. And then when the cars go by, they kind of go right back into the neighborhoods, right back into hunting for usually wild prey. And in the terms of a coyotes mind, a wild prey might include a unleashed cat that’s left outside, especially at nighttime. Cause because they know that how would they know the difference The one thing they do know is cats are typically found near human residences, but I’ve lost some chickens. I used to raise chickens and I’ve lost some to coyotes that I let roam and they never get into my pen. But when I let the chickens free room, it’s kind of like the coyotes know the chickens are near their house, but they know it’s somebody’s pet or just a wild animal that lives only near people’s houses, you know, from their perspective.

Speaker 3: Right So there, there are these animals that do really well in their people because we provide them perfect habitat and they utilize that. They’re typically on these small Woody patches during the daytime, in these urban or highly urban areas, they largely avoid people there. There’s absolutely no question. They’re scared of people. Any animal that you tell me is old. The minute I trap them and put a radio collar on, which gives me the ability to track these animals, they are always just terrified of people. I mean, literally going in the bathroom on themselves, having their, having their ears back cowering, it would be like you or me walking down an alley, I’m in a big gang going by us. Are you going to confront the gang and puff up your jacket Are you going to kind of look the other way and almost pretend that you’re smaller and don’t see me, please.

Speaker 3: Don’t see me. And it’s not figuratively. It’s literally the impression I get when I’ve studied these animals over the years. And then when I track them, it’s very similar. You know, they’re much more bold that night. And I think a lot of that reason is they’re comfortable because most people aren’t active at night and they know where people are active at night and it’s easier for them to avoid people. of course they’re predators. And so they have to travel quite a bit. They can move up to 10, 15 miles a night, which is hard to even fathom until you actually watch them do it in an urban area. And you’re like, holy smokes. Literally a coyote from Quincy could take the railroad tracks into Boston. Certainly south Boston, get some food there. Let’s just say that park in south Boston that used to that’s a golf course now in a park used to be in, it’s pretty close to Quincy. Obviously. Let’s just say that was the open cap dump. I think it used to be years ago, a coyote family could easily take like railroad tracks or some highway into that area of south Boston feed and then be back in the marshes of Quincy the next morning on a regular basis. I mean, that’s how much they travel. I’m not saying there is a packing Quincy doing that cause I haven’t tracked them there. But just to give you a perspective,

Speaker 1: It’s just an example.

Speaker 3: Yeah. So, so they move quite a bit, but largely they’re avoiding people, but in the same sense to kind of contradict myself a little bit because they’re, they’re an animal of contradictions. They also have to be seen because of the way they move. So even though they’re largely avoiding people because of this movement and because of their food requirements of a predator, they are often seen as they’re traveling, especially where people aren’t bothering them, they might be more active to travel in the early morning or later evening when it’s still light out when people are still active, even though they’re mostly avoiding people, but they’re mil for the most part is to kind of fulfill their, requirements, their biological requirements while, while avoiding people as best they can. And I mean, the numbers are kind of proved by the statistics. You know, if, if one or two coyotes bites people a year, like what happened in Arlington and on Cape Cod Provincetown this summer where there were two separate bites and in each place, that is an extremely abnormal event.

Speaker 3: And meanwhile, nationwide, a couple dozen people are killed by our, our beloved dogs every year, a thousand people per day go to the emergency room from dog bites. So not just a scratch that, you know, oh, I’ll just, you know, put a bandaid on it. But something that requires an emergency room visit a thousand people per day, just in the United States go to the emergency room from dog bites and somebody might say, oh yeah, there’s a lot more dogs and coyotes, but coyotes essentially live in every community in north America, at least that the United States besides Hawaii. So, and I venture to say that if you have a bike, you could, if you don’t live, if you live in a high-rise in Manhattan or something on a bike ride, you could get within Audi range, within an hour or two, that’s how many calories there are. Even if there might not be as many cavities as there are dogs that he’s lived throughout, pretty much most of the human populated north America except Northern Canada and Northern Alaska. So it’s an interesting and very successful animal. And it’s become even more interested in the Northeast when you get this bigger kind of hybrid animal. But, but essentially they’re doing the same thing regardless of that hybrid background.

Speaker 1: Interesting. Yeah. I have, honeybee hives in my yard. And so I had a game camera set up in my yard just to watch them at night. All of a sudden this thing comes along, trot through the yard at night and I’m thinking it’s not a Fox. What is that And it’s got this big, long bushy tail. And I’m thinking, I think that’s, that’s bigger than a Fox. And then it’s like, there’s gotta be a coyote. And then right down the middle of the street, I saw this guy and my dogs went nuts. They, their noses went up in the air and they just started barking inside the house. And I looked and there’s this coyote running down the middle of the not running, but kind of like that little bouncy trot that they have. And then one morning it was, I don’t know it was up, it was after sunrise, but the sun certainly wasn’t high in the sky, but, we’re walking through Faxon and I see this thin coyote just trot across this open parking area, it looked over and it was like, yeah, I know I’m going this way.

Speaker 1: And it just, just moved on into the woods. But then I hear people talking about, well, we were walking down this path and then this coyote appeared and we started to make a lot of noise and stuff like that. You explained that the, the incidents of human interaction with coyotes and actually getting harmed by one is extremely low. But if somebody were to come across a coyote with their dog or something like that, are there any behaviors that people should take or any precautions that people should take or just make a lot of noise and it’ll probably run away or they probably see you long before you see them and they’re just not interested.

Speaker 3: Yeah. It’s a great question. And you, you almost kind of sit the couple of the sessions. I’m going to say you kind of suggested there. first of all, they certainly you, most of the time, not always, certainly, but, but most of the time they kind of know you’re coming. Most people, including kids are pretty loud and they don’t even know what half the time. And, and usually they can smell people most of the time ahead of time. So certainly coming across one in making noise doesn’t hurt. and it’s, it’s a good idea. In fact, one of the biggest suggestions out west, cause I visit Yellowstone. I’ve written quite a few books on my trips to Yellowstone national park, one of my favorite areas in the world. And, I always carry bear spray, which is essentially a high form of, of pepper spray or mace that I carry when I hike out there and, and really kind of applies.

Speaker 3: It applies to coyotes too. The more noise you make, if you’re scared of them or nervous of them, the, the better it can be. I’ve had some scenarios on Cape Cod where I’ve had animals bedded down, especially in the summertime, the summertime, it gets dark so late that I can almost just tell the animals are getting itchy, to get up and get going. They often just kind of wait for it to get to that dust corpuscular time, which you know, in June and July isn’t until 8 15, 8 30. Yeah. And I’ve had a few, I’ve had a few scenarios where, and I mean this literally where I’ve almost had to knock on people’s doors to tell them what I’m doing. So they don’t call the police where there’s kids jumping on trampolines. And I have the animals signal off the wall. Like the flipping thing is under the trampoline and it’s really, it’s 50 yards away, probably in this patch of woods.

Speaker 3: And it’s very predictable. The animal doesn’t do much movement. I, I w I go find another animal. I come back right before dark and sure enough, right at dark, they get up and leave. And of course that’s when most kids, especially, or people in general are generally going inside because, you know, you’re losing light. It’s hard to see. And the animal gets active. And even if the kids were still on the trampoline, they probably would still get active around them. And they would just go out kind of the back way of the woods that they came. But I’ve had variations of that, just dozens and dozens of times of animals being right near human activity in these small patches of wood. Usually these small patches of wood are really thick, like a lot of briars or marshy like habitats that clearly people don’t go in and the coyotes can smell that the people don’t go into even these, like maybe one acre, really small process of land that even a urban place like Quincy has plenty of those areas remaining remaining, and they get active.

Speaker 3: So clearly, you know, most galleries are doing that and avoiding people and doing what you kind of, how you described it, you know, they’re out and about, but you come along and they just go the other way and where people aren’t killing them in urban areas, they kind of disregard us as another object and they’re not going to get more dangerous. They just aren’t as willing to use so much energy to run away from us. It might be equivalent out in Yellowstone where there’s lots of bison and bison weigh 2000 pounds, at least the males do, and they can harm humans and even predators pretty easily. Cause they’re just such big, massive animals. And I’ve seen many instances, not just coyotes, but large gray wolves, some of the largest wolves in north America in that Yellowstone area, because of all the food that they eat in the wild.

Speaker 3: And when a bison comes along, they do pram bison, but usually the ones that they can actually bring down, but healthy bison will literally just ignore wolves and wolves will be traveling in a, in a line and they’ll come across bison or bison herd. And just like you or me hiking on a trail, they have to essentially go off the trail to get around the bison. And then they get back on the trail to continue on their path. And they’re, they’re largely avoiding them. And I think that’s what coyotes often do, especially at nighttime with people in cars is, you know, they know that there’s lots of humans where they live and they’re kind of avoiding us, but also trying not to alter their lives too much so they can meet their biological needs. So, so making noise and, and, you know, being aware and if you carry things like air horns, even sticks and rocks to just kind of throw at animals that might get near, that can make a big difference.

Speaker 3: That’s with people. When you add dogs to the mic mix, especially when you’re walking dogs at night, they can get aroused in different regards to dogs. First of all, dogs and coyotes are just natural competitors, just like out west wolves and coyotes are wolves kill coyotes that try to eat their food. The coyotes kind of just naturally see, you know, a close relative like the dog as competition in something that they generally don’t like. I do hear reports of Katie’s playing with dogs and stuff. And I think that has to do with young coyotes that are kind of on their own. They’ve either left their family or are in their parents’ territory. And they’re just kind of on their own. That’s what I typically think of. But I think when you hear of coyotes playing with dogs or vice versa dogs playing with Kylie’s, you’re probably talking about younger coyotes that are willing to do that because most older coyotes are guarding territories and they don’t want, they don’t want non coyotes or non dogs in their territory.

Speaker 3: So one of the most important things to do with dogs, and I know it’s a leash law, obviously in a place like Quincy, especially, but leashing dogs can be one of the most important things you do with them. Leashing dogs just literally prevents that interaction from happening unless coyotes physically come, you know, within whatever five feet of you, which is just extraordinary, extraordinary, rare. So obviously we’re not worrying about that on a daily basis. And I think putting coyotes in perspective, they are a predator living near us, but just like we can get into, you know, bad things happening to us with other humans or, or cars while we drive. it’s, it’s just really, really rare obviously for those events to happen, same thing with coyotes, doing something negative towards us. But with dogs, I do have this instant kind of arousal. And even though they generally avoid dogs and I’ve recorded many instances where they often avoid dogs, they often, you know, have confrontations with them as well.

Speaker 3: And especially at nighttime, when people are walking dogs at night, you know, coyotes are much more bold for all the reasons we just talked about. Mainly because most people are inactive and they’ll come into neighborhoods though travel and, you know, human dominated areas more than they will during the daytime. And just keeping dog’s leash is really important. In the later part of the summertime unleashed dogs, near coyote sites where coyotes raised their pups can often be fiercely defended. I’ve seen coyotes, mostly avoid people for most of the year. And then in the, in the late summer, June has been, especially July and August when coyote pups are more active, I’ve seen coyotes aggressively confront dogs. And almost every time it’s been in a place like a golf course or a cranberry bog here on Cape Cod where, dogs are unleashed because people are walking them and coyotes immediately confront them.

Speaker 3: And then, you know, obviously there might be some type of negative interaction there, whether it’s an attack or just a, just a confrontation. And sometimes that even happens with dogs being leashed, where the people say, gosh, these two or three Kyries confronted me. I turned around and I say, let me guess what happened You had your dog leash, you were doing everything right. And the coyotes followed me and it was really unnerving, but then all of a sudden the Cody’s just stopped and turned back around. and I continued on my way and I say, it may say, yes, that’s exactly what happened. And I say, well, there’s no question in my mind that you were at, what’s called a rendezvous site, rendezvous sites or above ground den sites that the pups use when they’re not using dens anymore. They only use dens for the first couple months of life.

Speaker 3: So about the age where you might bring a dog puppy home from a breeder, they’re pretty, they’re pretty much not sleeping in Benz anymore. They’re sleeping above ground. And the parents in the offspring of the parents that are helping ruins and pups get pretty protective of them. And so very often they’ll turn back around, walk back to that rendezvous site where the pups are like nothing ever happened. And the people are like, what just happened And that’s exactly what happened. They were kind of escorting the dog or dogs away, even with the people nearby, you know,

Speaker 1: Trusting you tell me this story because I had a neighbor come to me saying he was going to call me because he was, he walked his dogs at night. I live near a park and he said that all of a sudden these coyotes came and they followed them all the way back to his house. Interesting. And he knows that I have a couple of dogs. This is, I got to call John, but he saw me the next day. And he told me all about it. And I said, geez, that’s kind of scary. I mean, you know, they follow you back to your house, but what you’re saying is that there’s a likelihood that maybe that park or someplace close to that park, might’ve been what you call a rendezvous site,

Speaker 3: certainly possible. You know, obviously I’m not going to have a specific zone on all that, but, there’s a, there’s a good chance. and then there’s also kind of something that happens in the, in the mid-winter they breed around roughly mid January to maybe early February. That’s when they breed. And then, a little over two months later, they have good birth of course, in the spring, which would be usually late March, early April is when the birth around here then. So during their breeding season, they also seem to get a lot more territorial where the males are sticking with the females, not letting other males into their territory. And some of the pups are now almost one year old. And usually a coyote pack is about three or four animals, which would be a couple of pups that stick around to become young adults with their parents.

Speaker 3: and they’re traveling these territories. And that’s the other time of the year where you often hear about dog confrontations. Is there just a little bit more kind of aggressive towards other canines And, you know, usually that’s other coyotes, but obviously dogs kind of fit into that mix. And, they just seem to be kind of, you know, something seems to kind of set them off sometimes. And especially at night, they kind of keep their eye and they just want those animals away. And if you have a more German shepherd type looking animal, you obviously have this animal that might look a little bit more wild than another breed of dog. and it just seems like, especially when the dogs leash that they do that, but there’s usually not an actual confrontation, which is definitely unnerving. I, I certainly feel for the person, especially not knowing what’s going on.

Speaker 3: but usually usually that noise being made and the dogs being leashed usually prevent those interactions. But, but I do agree walking an animal escorting you right back to your house is a little bit extreme. I would think that not knowing the area that you know, once get into the neighborhood and you leave that park, the animals would feel more secure and then turn back around and go do what they’re doing. So to follow them that far it’s certainly I would agree is, is, is unusual in, in a little bit beyond. And, you know, I would recommend yelling, making noise and doing that even while you’re walking dogs, just so they certainly know it’s gone because there’s no question they key in, on dogs during a lot of this. And it’s very rare, at least I haven’t heard of too often for these animals to actually follow up people without dogs.

Speaker 3: And then unfortunately, when that happens, there’s almost no question people in the area are feeding them. And that’s that, that seems to be obviously what’s occurring in almost all these attacks we’re hearing about. And certainly in the province town one, the Cape Cod national seashore Rangers had to put down a coyote that went after a little kid and people were feeding them. And I don’t have any personal experience with that recently, but people were from what I hear were clearly feeding Cody’s in that area. And most of the time, even when you feed them and do everything wrong, they stay pretty wary around people, but obviously not every single one does that. And certain animals become used to that. And then they become reliant on people in aggressive towards people and not, not feeding them in the first place is important out west. The motto is a fed bear is a dead bear because once you start feeding bears, they start keying in on that. And with coyotes, you can almost kind of say the same thing

Speaker 1: Occurred to me while you were saying that, what about trash night Some evenings people will put their trash cans out the afternoon before. And it’s always a challenge cause I have a couple of dogs that have a good chunk of hound in them. And so they sniff everything anyway, but on trash night, it’s even more of a challenge. And I’m wondering if the same thing holds true for coyotes that, oh yeah, it’s Wednesday night in Quincy. So let’s go troll around for like, you know, the Buffalo wing bones that somebody throughout they scavengers like that, or are they looking for live prey and, and taking care of it that way

Speaker 3: I think that in a place like Quincy trash night would be more affected by, raccoons maybe, and then possibly by coyotes raccoons, I think certainly would key on that, but they also certainly would probably know that it probably is the best thing in the long run for, for avoiding confrontations in, in garbage, everywhere with animals would be to bring food, bring trash out, excuse me at, at, in the morning after, you know, right before they come. So that’s probably the best thing to ultimately do is to just bring your trash outside in the morning. I don’t think they go into dumpsters as much as an animal like raccoon would. I don’t think they typically do it because one of the impediments is they’re not going to really be able to open up garbage cans, like a raccoon, you know, the raccoons have these pliable hands like you and I do. Yeah. Dexterous. Exactly. So, so while they might do it, I would think other animals like raccoons and maybe even possums might do it a little bit more,

Speaker 1: A really cool experience that you’ve had in your research.

Speaker 3: Yeah. you know, it’s bittersweet as, as I talked to you about this because I did research for a number of years and just with all my findings in publishing, I, I came, a ride to mass wildlife, mass, Massachusetts fish, and wildlife for the people that give you permits to do the research. And so for the past 10 plus years, I actually have not been doing research, which involves trapping, putting radio collars on and then track tracking them in the wild coming up with essentially all the findings that you and I have talked about here today. so it’s, it’s bittersweet because while the same agency allows people to kill them at will for six months a year with a hunting license, I’ve been repeatedly obstructed for my work. So it’s real frustrating. Cause when, when I tell you these stories, I just have to reinforce before I tell you some of the anecdotes that you want to hear, that you need permits to do all this.

Speaker 3: And even with a PhD degree in affiliation with university researchers, wildlife agencies are really often special interest based and nationwide. They have a real bias against predators and it it’s real frustrating. and so I’ll kind of leave it at that if they want to learn more and might be angered, why I’m not actively doing research, they can go into my coil book. And to say that I provide a timeline of exactly what happened would be an understatement. And one of the, one of the first carnival researchers that has been obstructed that has actually spoken out and kind of explain the research obstruction, it’s kind of like, you know, the, the church and the state stuff and scandals that you read about in those, I’m kind of one of the first researchers coming out. So a lot of people don’t know how to help me because wildlife agencies have such power over our collective wildlife resource.

Speaker 3: And the first part of my book coils talks about the animals. So if you want to learn about coy wolves and why they’re called coils and how they behave in the wild, it’s a lot of what you and I have discussed in kind of pictorial detail. the second part is more about the politics associated with wildlife management and how and why a lot of things are unjust. So I, I just wanted to point that out because, not to kind of just toot my own horn of what’s happened to me cause it’s real disappointing to not be actively doing my work, but to answer, answer all of your questions, I need to go through this permitting process that even when I got permits again from universities, they still denied me for really fraudulent reasons. But, some of the work I’ve had has been fascinating because I’m from the town of Barnstable where I’ve done most of my work here on Cape Cod.

Speaker 3: in, in, in the politics aside I’ve, I’ve, I’ve seen some really cool things. I also had a companion site on the north side of Boston. I work with a teacher, Dave from Revere high school who was actually still at Rivera high school. And so we did a pilot project in a companion study in the Revere area, which would include Everett Malden, Melrose in, in those towns and cities around him, including Revere. but most of my work took place in the town of Barnstable where I’m from. So it was really amazing to do this work and hopefully I will be doing this work eventually again, kind of amazing do the work where you grew up and find some of the things that I’ve found in some of the coolest things I’ve found was that animal that used to sleep near trampolines, lived in Austin Ville and he and his pack would take the Osterville Drawbridge across, to get to the mainland of Austin, which means that the people on oyster harbors, which is one of the richest places on Cape Cod richest, places in the country that, you know, that have multi-million dollar houses, it’s this private island and the people on this private island used to think that six or seven counties lived on that private island.

Speaker 3: And the minute I had them radio collared, I realized that that was about 20% of their territory and they were leaving the private island every night, or coming back to the private, private island most nights as well, not every single night, but most nights, and going back and forth between the mainland of Osterville to that essentially that island that, that, that Drawbridge island. And it was amazing to look at how these animals would cross the road. They would literally, obviously the drive Ridge would have to be down to begin with. So it’d be like a road, a road that we could drop drive over, but I became so used to their patterns that I would just drive to this bridge once I got a good location of where they were beforehand. And then I would just wait and sure enough, the radio signals would get really loud, no matter what direction they were coming.

Speaker 3: And it was just amazing to see three or four animals often at night, sometimes one or two, but three or four animals traveling over this bridge and then go down the bridge. And I knew exactly where in the bridge they would go on and off to not be on the road for a super long period of time. Oh, fascinating. Yeah. Those were pretty amazing. But let me just give the listener one final thing if I may, is that a cure Yeah, of course. Yeah. One of the things that was, was super impressive was just how much they moved that night and knowing where I was exactly. Cause I grew up in this town, I ran track and cross country. So I, I, you know, I appreciate having to run that far. It was just how much they would move. Like for instance, they’d be deep in Hyannis at calmness beach one day, one moment.

Speaker 3: And then two hours later they’d be leaving Hyannisport and they’d be in Centerville by Kragle beach, which is one of the most popular beaches on Cape Cod where lots of tourists go to in the summertime, they’d be traveling on the beach on Craigo beach, but then they take a detour and they get kind of into the suburbs. And let’s just say, I gave up tracking them at one in the morning. I wake up the next morning at five or six to try to get them, you know, as they’re finishing up their daily movement. And all of a sudden I have them in a completely different part of central, like maybe up by burger king, which is at exit six on the mid-cap highway. And if you are like from the area and you think of starting a comma speech going to Craig will beach, then moving through a lot of those neighborhoods of Centerville and ending up somewhere near exit six, you’re just going to be like, there’s no way an animal did that regularly.

Speaker 3: They would do that on a nightly basis. So that’s pretty amazing. And, you know, to get an impression of that on a daily basis with all the animals was really amazing. And then being able to watch them in the summertime at their rendezvous sites, when they chose choose these open golf courses or cranberry bogs, it was also really special because I got to see them up close, not at night moving, but during the daytime. And when I say the daytime, usually Dawn or dusk, you know, five to seven in the morning and maybe seven to nine at night before it gets dark out. Those were also really neat experiences that, you know, hopefully I can do again, but these rendezvous sites where they raise their pups and the pups learn to, kinda transitioned to being an independent adolescent Cody on their own where some of the unique things, but regular things that you might see if you have animals, radio collar that you, you know, just would be fortunate to see at the right time of the year, which would be the later part of the summer, the early part of the fall, which would be kind of ending right around now.

Speaker 3: But yeah, late September. Cause once you get to October, they start traveling more, even the pups do. And usually by the later part of the fall, assuming that the pups survive, some of them eventually leave and disperse from their parents, whereas a couple might stick around and form that pack, which would average about three or four can be bigger, but three or four seems to be the average kind of pack size. Once when the pups decide to leave before the new pups are born, then the following spring,

Speaker 1: John, as you’ve been talking, I’ve been looking at your website, Eastern coyote research.com. And I have to say there’s, there are some amazing pictures, beautiful pictures of these animals and all kinds of links to the books that you’ve mentioned, the, suburban house. And there’s a new one mud, I mean April and Yellowstone.

Speaker 3: Yup. Yup.

Speaker 1: Eastern coyote research.com. Is there a another site or any of that

Speaker 3: Yeah. No, that’s it. And there, there is a link to my, I have a, my Yellowstone experience.org, but you can get everything that you’re talking [email protected]. Just like you said, the things most specific to our talk is there’s a print book called suburban howls. That’s a little over 10 years old, right on my website there, you know, signed copy if anybody wanted that. but then, the, the thing that I’ve done most recently, that’s probably most relevant to our discussion is that coy Wolf book and that’s actually an ebook. And one of the helpful things with that coy Wolf ebook that’s right on Eastern Cody research.com is not only can you read a book for free if you’re not able to donate Cause I asked, you know, if you’re able to read this, can you please donate to my work But if you’re not able to, you can read it for free.

Speaker 3: But the other thing that’s really advantageous is if you are interested in anything we’re talking about here, whether it’s the politics of why I’m not actively doing research to obviously the animal itself, I provide dozens, if not hundreds of links within the book itself. So you might download the book tomorrow and read it over the, you know, the next week and say, oh, this is really cool. But then go back and say, I want to learn more about this or that. And on the, one of the biggest advantages that a ebook has is I have many, many, many hyperlinks in there that allows people to go to either verify the science behind what you and I talked about. I have every, all my peer reviewed research is in there that verifies the science that you and I talked about or the other stuff like unfortunate. The politics in has happened to my at least research career at the present time.

Speaker 1: That’s great. I mean, I’m looking at me, you’ve got a ton of stuff here on this screen. Yeah. Well, John, you have been very generous with your time. I really appreciate you. You spending the time that you have with us today and your contact information is all found at easterncoyoteresearch.com. That’s where they can download these eBooks, make a donation to your site.

Speaker 3: That’s great, John and I, I appreciate your time as well in the audience’s time for, for listening to me, ramble on for over an hour, but no, everything you said is accurate and and I hope that, folks can get more out of this.

Speaker 1: All right. Well thank you, John. I hope that goes well. And we will keep in touch.

Speaker 3: You bet down. I appreciate the time. Thank you.

Speaker 1: Well, that’s it for this episode of the all about Quincy podcast, I hope you found it informative and enjoyable. Remember, next episode, we’re starting off our pizza episodes. October is national pizza month. And my first guest is Gennaro’s restaurant on Quincy avenue diagonally across from the Quincy credit union. And he’s got some really interesting things to share with us about the science and art of making the perfect pizza. You definitely going to want to listen to that show. All right. If you have a guest that you think should be on the show, any unsung hero business owner historian, we want to know about it. Go to all about Quincy podcast.com, go to the upper right-hand corner, click the contact button, give us your first name and your email address and fill out why you think this person should be on the show. Thanks again for listening. And I’ll talk to you real soon. Take care.

Remembering Ted and The Firefighters – September 11th 20 years Later

Ted Hennessy

Speaker 1: From the city of presidents, it’s the all about Quincy podcast. This is your host, John Melley. Join me as we explore the history, hidden gems and highlight the businesses with great stories that I’ll tell the tale like Quincy, Massachusetts, as a great place to live. Hey, it’s John, how are you today Thank you for listening and spending some time with me. I do appreciate it very much before I get into the meat of the episode. I want to give a shout out to our listeners from around the world. We have listeners in India, Ireland, and in Brussels, Belgium, and most folks are listening in the United States. And obviously most folks are listening right here in Massachusetts and Quincy and the surrounding environs. But I just wanted to give a shout out to everybody around the world who are listening to this show. Thank you. drop us a line, send us an email, go to all about Quincy podcast.com and tell us where you’re from and what you’re, what you like and what you want to hear about.

Speaker 1: perhaps you lived in Quincy and you want, you need, a taste of home. Let us know what you want to hear, and we will try and make that happen. I just wanted to say that before I dove into the episode, this is going to be a short episode and it is going to be a different episode from my previous episodes. I want to share with you a piece that I produced 20 years ago after the terror attacks of nine 11. I don’t need to remind anyone that that terrible day happened 20 years ago. And like many of you I’m sure, was personally touched. by those events. I had a high school friend, Ted Hennessy, who was on the first plane into the world trade center. And I want to remember him. Ted was a, we grew up together. We were in Cub Scouts together.

Speaker 1: His father was the pack leader and, we had several classes together, like gym classes. He was a year older than I, we were in band together. We both played the tenor saxophone in marching band and, clarinet section in concert band in high school. And, he worked for a company that, developed software that my parents used in their business. And so I, I kind of lost touch with him after high school. He graduated a year before I did, but I remember Ted as first of all, extremely bright and funny and a really talented musician. and he had a wife and a couple of kids and I knew his parents. And, I just wanted to remember him. but what I want to share with you as a piece I produced 20 years ago, it’s called the firefighters. And I, I, I felt the need to do something after September 11th.

Speaker 1: It was just such a, it was such a difficult there. It was so many emotions we felt, and I poured my energy into what I do production. And so this is dedicated to all our first responders, our firefighters or police officers, our ambulance drivers, our tow truck drivers who rescue people off the sides of the highways, stranded on the roads. this is for you. I want you to know you’re appreciated and valued, and we thank you for doing what you do for us every day. So I’m going to share this piece with you. You will hear some voices from 20 years ago, and we’ll just leave it there and that’s going to be the show. So let’s just go into the piece. Now. I hope you enjoy it and stay safe, stay healthy. Let’s be kind to one another. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

Episode_004: Quincy Historical Society is All About Quincy

Speaker 1: From the city of presidents, it’s the all about Quincy podcast. This is your host, John Melley. Join me as we explore the history, hidden gems and highlight the businesses with great stories that I’ll tell the tale why Quincy, Massachusetts is a great place to live. Hey, there it’s John. Thanks for spending some time with me today. I do appreciate it. And welcome to episode four of the all about Quincy podcast.

I have a true confession. I totally spaced on this episode. I had recorded this back at the end of June, with Alexandra Elliott and Ed Fitzgerald, both from the Quincy historical society. And, you ever have a project that you start and you, you get distracted and then you forget all about it. And then you suddenly have that jolting feeling. You sit upright and that adrenaline dump and you go, oh my gosh, I forgot all about that. And then you forget about it again. And then you realize you’ve blown it twice and then you get embarrassed. So you procrastinate on it. Yeah, that’s what I did with this episode, Alexandra Elliot. And I started corresponding, I think back in may to get this episode recorded and we recorded it back at the end of June. And so it’s been a couple months that this interview with the kind folks at the Quincy historical society has been sitting, waiting to be published. And so my public apology to Ed Fitzgerald and Alexandra Elliott at the Quincy historical society for kind of messing this up, I hope you’ll forgive me. I hope you’ll enjoy it. And if you’ve got any comments or feedback, please go to all about Quincy podcast.com. And let me know your thoughts now without any further delay, let’s listen to my conversation With Ed & Alexandra.

Speaker 2: Well, as I said, at the beginning of the program, I have some guests from the Quincy historical society, and I am very excited about today’s show. My guests today are Edward Fitzgerald and Alexandra Elliott. And Edward is the executive director and Alexandra is the curator for the Quincy historical society. And, you folks have been very busy reopening after the COVID pandemic. And, we worked hard to get this episode scheduled. So I want to thank you both for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with me today. Absolutely happy to be here. Thanks for having us. I was thinking that this, the Quincy historical society of all the historical societies in the country has got to be one of the Primo historical societies to be a part of.

Speaker 3: We certainly think so Quincy is very unique in that it, it just has such a tremendous width and breadth of topics that you can talk about in terms of the history of the, of the city, back all the way to, you know, the revolutionary period and before that, and then all the way up through world war II and to today as well.

Speaker 2: And how did you get started with the society I

Speaker 4: Kind of fell into it, I suppose, is the answer. I was, I had an academic background. I had done some teaching, and some freelance editorial work and writing and things like that and worked in nonprofits, and at family ties to Quincy and we were back here and the time he just turned to be turned out to be right. And, they were looking for somebody and I was looking for something along these lines and it happened, and I was happy because I was interested in the topic and it’s been a very interesting, it’s been a good thing to be doing Alexandra. How about yourself I kind

Speaker 3: Of fell into it a little bit too. I got started back in 2017. I was brought on to help out with a Howard Johnson special exhibit that was going up. And then ed decided that we worked well together. And so brought me on, on a more permanent basis. And I’ve been here ever since then. It’s been great. There’s never a dull moment, honestly.

Speaker 2: All right. Especially the last year and a half. Right. Tell me about the history of the historical society at you sent over some information before this conversation and it’s, I don’t know how it fits into the scheme of how old relative, historical societies are in the country, but it was founded in 1893 by some pretty prominent folks. If you tell us about that,

Speaker 4: It’s not by any stretch. One of the oldest societies, there are some real granddaddy old societies, like the Oracle society and Massachusetts historical society that both of which have more than a century on us. Wow. But there was a big movement in kind of historical recognition and an historical concern in the 1890s. And I think the society kind of comes out of that and you’re right. I mean, they had some, very, very prominent people, including our first president who was first president of the society was Charles Francis Adams, the second from those Francis Adams Jr. And then, his brother Brooks Adams was president of the society for 20 years in the early part of the 20th century. but then a lot of, a lot of just community people came together to do it as well. It was, it’s interesting because it was, it looks like it was a pretty democratic, small D democratic society all along. There was no, no, you had to be invited to join or you had to prove your pedigree or anything like that. Anybody who was interested, they were more than happy to have joined right from the start. the secretary and the, well, the treasurer and the president were all guys to start with, but there were women in prominent roles pretty, really from the star too. So there’s some very nice things about it. This and this there’s some good background there.

Speaker 2: You said something at the beginning of the history of this thing, you said that there was a sense that it was important to create a historical society. What was the backdrop to that thinking I think it’s several things.

Speaker 4: I think it’s a period of great change obviously for, for America. And in many ways, Quincy had turned into a city to adopt the city form of government five years earlier in 1888, our population wasn’t huge, but it was kind of clear. We were becoming a city and I would that all sorts of changes. We’re gonna, we’re going to take place, also to be quite Frank immigration and the changing demographics of the town, I think made them mid people, particularly people who were of the old Yankee stock, the people like Charles Francis Adams, interested in preserving the history, of their time. So a lot of the impulse I think, was to preserve the history of their time, but they didn’t get stuck in that. I mean, and there were also, by 1893, the major ethnic group, other than English Anglo-Saxon Protestant, people would have been the Irish. And there, there were Irish people in fairly important positions in the society from the star too, but it’s, it’s a kind of combined push poll in a way that, there’s a kind of fear of what’s the things are changing and, oh my God, we’re going to save things which is maybe not the best motive, but there’s also the motive of we’ve got to do, we’ve got to save what is best for the future, which is the good motive.

Speaker 2: I think a lot of what you described is understandable. I think we’re going through similar time now in our history. So I can see that what is the Quincy historical society’s mission

Speaker 3: It is to preserve as much of Quincy history as possible in that being, you know, what is happening, in recent years. And then also going back as far as, you know, Quincy would exist. We have, first of all, our museum, currently we’re in the Adams academy building our beautiful building here on Adam street. And we have a museum that spans from the earliest days before you had European settlement. So dealing with some of the native American history, but then going up through the 20th century as well. and so that’s a lot of crown to cover in a fairly small space. You

Speaker 2: Had sent over a picture of the historical societies building, and it looks a lot like the Thomas Crane public library was designed by the same architect.

Speaker 3: It’s not the same architect, but it is the same, or it’s a similar architectural style. so our building is in the Gothic revival style. It was done by correct me if I’m wrong, ed, this is going to be William Ware and, Henry van brunt, I think it has certainly been brunt it’s and yeah, so it’s wherein van brunt, who designed the building and it’s

Speaker 2: Purposes, we’ll call him Hank.

Speaker 3: but what’s weird or what’s kind of interesting about the building is that usually you’ll see the, the granite as the main building material, but instead our building uses it as the embellishment, as the trim, which is quite interesting, cause it’s a very pretty building, but it’s got the granite on the, as the accent piece instead of the brick,

Speaker 2: I wouldn’t have observed that, but that’s cool. John Adams

Speaker 4: Had specified in the deeds to create the, the school that this was, that would be a built a Quincy stone, Quincy granite. Okay. The crane office is Henry Hudson Richardson. The great American architect. This building is about 10 years earlier. This was opened in 1872. The crane opened in 1882.

Speaker 2: Oh, interesting. Yeah. So tell me about some of the programs that the historical society

Speaker 3: Typically during a year, you know, during a regular year, we would have usually monthly, either guest speakers or special programming talking about a myriad of different topics. Our summer ones tend to be a little bit lighter, fair. We have a fun pop culture series that we usually run during the summer having to do with like a lot of music or other pop culture topics that are related to Quincy during the pandemic, we started transitioning to doing more virtual programs over zoom and the like, and we had a couple really popular ones. we did a reprise of a 2019 program that we had that was featuring the experience of Quincy during the 1918 influenza pandemic feature, featuring some unique or excuse me, original research that we had done back then before we knew what was coming down the pike. Right. so of course people were very interested to kind of see, okay, so how did Quincy deal with this in the past And then we also did one about another disease, more death and disease, about yellow fever and how that wants to American culture. And then we did a much more lighthearted, one about the various ad campaigns done by Howard Johnson over the years. Oh, that’s very popular. Yeah.

Speaker 2: That’s very cool. It was always interesting to hear from my perspective, people talking about the COVID pandemic in terms of, in these unprecedented times and they weren’t unprecedented, they’re unprecedented in our lifetime, but, obviously we’ve been through something like this before, but I, I wondered many times how we would have fared without the technology that we have available to us today. restaurants, where they switched very quickly to take out orders, through various apps and delivery services and, and, you know, I have a lot of people were able to work remotely. Right. And so I just wonder how everything would, I mean, you can only speculate, but you just wonder how different would it have been if we did not have the technology today that we have today,

Speaker 3: It undoubtedly would have been a much harder. Yeah,

Speaker 2: I think so. Yeah. Those sounded like interesting. Thanks. My, I was telling Alexander and I had a call before this recording session and my dad grew up in Milton and my grandfather actually knew Howard Johnson. My grandfather was treasurer at the Milton cooperative savings bank, I think. And actually I’m looking at the date that the society was founded and he was born in 1893, my grandfather. So, it’s interesting to hear, some of these names in history and there are some ties. Yeah. I don’t know if I told you this, but if you’re familiar with Milton and the Forbes museum at all. Yeah, my great, great grand uncle is Thomas Murdoch or was Thomas Murdoch who built the Lincoln replica cabin Oh yeah. Yeah. My, my grandmother, the woman who married my grandfather was just discussing Quinn. What are you doing, buddy Get out of there.

Speaker 2: Hold on. He’s tearing a paperback. That’s Quinn the Jakabee, or is a boy he’s free to handle it. Yeah. Well he’s the mascot for the podcast. So we’ll have to post a picture at any rate. yeah. My grandmother was a Murdoch and Thomas Murdoch was her uncle. He, was hired by Forbes to, build a replica and he drove down there and a model T and went and, took measurements and took saplings tree samples and dirt samples so that he can match the color of the chinking between the logs in the cabin. So those, those are the things, but he was quite the character. My father said he got through many, a school report, writing stories about his uncle, Tom. He was, he was, he was, he was crazy when he had a cold, he would sip kerosene. He was going to burn it out. He lived into his night. He well into his nineties. I mean really Yeah. Yeah. He really did. Maybe there’s something to it. Maybe. I’m not sure I want to try it, but, so it’s, it’s, it’s kind of fun to hear all of this stuff and just know that my family has roots way back. And some of them actually knew some of these people that or discussing.

Speaker 3: That’s kind of one of my, one of my favorite parts of the job is whenever we do a program or, you know, post something on our blog or on our Facebook page and you just get people commenting or coming up to us and telling us stories about their family and what they remember in and what their family stories are. And that’s always really interesting to see what people say,

Speaker 2: No, you do stuff with the schools as well. The historical society. Yes. Yeah. Tell us about it. We have a

Speaker 4: Program in the third and fourth grade. And so we go into every class in the third and fourth grade and the Quincy public schools and the Quincy Catholic academy. We have a teacher, we have a certified, retired Quincy public school teacher, who, Susan, are you going, who is doing a terrific job so it’s really the several things that we do. You know, most of what we do, we’re, we’re more or less proud of, justly, but we are, the school program is really kind of our hallmark in a lot of ways. It’s, it’s been going now for well, over three decades goes, it’s been going in one form or another thing since the 1980s. And it is really important to, to the life of the community. And kids learn the basics about Quincy’s history at a time when they can kind of absorb it and use to hear adults say, remember taking the course. I remember or remember the, coming here as a kid. So it’s, I think a very valuable thing that we do.

Speaker 2: My wife is a fourth generation Quincy resident, and she went to elementary school at the Adams school. And, she recalls fondly. She says every year we would March on down the hill, down to the birthplaces get the tour. And all of that, the reason I moved to Quincy was because I got married to Ann. And, as I said earlier, in my conversation, my dad grew up in Milton. So we would come down to Milton to visit my grandparents. And I couldn’t tell you how many times we drove off and got off on the, it wasn’t the Bryant avenue exit, but the one prior to it and came out into east Milton square. And we drove by that brown sign on the highway that says next exit Adam’s historical and national historic site is something. And look at that, look at that, look at that.

Speaker 2: And then it wasn’t until I finally moved here. I said, wait a minute. This is so cool. There’s so much here. I have to go see this. And I hesitate to make this comment, but I wonder how many, you know, it’s like the tourist thing to do, but I wonder how many people, obviously, I think one of the good things about the school program is people who grow up here. It’s not like they never do the freedom trail. You know, you’re living in the Massachusetts area. You never do the freedom trail. This exposes kids at an early age to the history of where they’re living. And I think that’s great. It gets them, there gets to see all of this. It’s a good,

Speaker 4: Very good point. It does get them there. They get to go to the historic sites. They get to come here and it’s, it gives them a sense of who they are. It gives them an experience of a museum at an early age and everything else. So, yeah, it’s terrific.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Along those lines as well, you know, I’m not originally from Quincy, I’m from Dedham, which is, you know, not too far away, but I didn’t grow up in Quincy, but something that I’ve really been impressed by and have become very proud of it as kind of, you know, working here and have it been a sort of adopted community that I’m a part of. Yeah. It’s just how much history there is and how relevant Quincy is to so many different stories within American history. I’ve started saying every once in a while, you know, all roads lead to Quincy, just because of how many different parallels and tangents and it’s like, I’ll be listening to something completely unrelated and, oh my gosh, that’s related back to Quincy.

Speaker 2: yeah, I think I developed a sense of, appreciation for American art. When I was a kid, I grew up in Metro west, actually, when I was a kid before I moved, I lived in Lexington. Obviously we all know what happened there and we would go and see, my mom grew up in Arlington and, we would go and see on Patriot’s day, the reenactment of Paul Revere’s ride. And then if you got up really early, you could actually watch the battle on Lexington green. So from an early age, I had always had this keen interest in the American revolution. And I had to do a book report in school about Thomas Jefferson. And of course, you know, he wrote the declaration of independence and all that, but he, he had a team of people that he worked with Adams was one of them. And, and Benjamin Franklin, I think was another one.

Speaker 2: And to me it was always interesting and always sort of was partial to Jefferson. And then I w I know there was some artistic license taken with it, but I, and I have read the book by McCulloch as well, but I watched the Adams series on HBO and reading some of the other things. And you see some of the things that Thomas Jefferson was doing later on after John Adams was vice-president and then became president and the workings in the machinations of what he was doing, buying people to write stories in the newspapers and all that kind of stuff. And you, you look at it and you go, it actually gives you some hope. If you can look at history from the lungs longstanding, you go twice ever thus. Yup. Yup. There’s really nothing new.

Speaker 3: Yeah. No people do not change. People still behave the same way as that they always have. So

Speaker 4: There was McCulloch was experiencing himself. He was, he had started out to do a book on Jefferson and Adams with Adams as the sort of second banana being so caught up with Adams that he just jettison the entire Jefferson side of the project and did the full biography of Adams.

Speaker 2: I’m glad he did. I mean, yeah. I just, I learned so much from that book and I think, you know, I’ve got a bias because of where I live now, but I’m the writer of the Massachusetts state constitution and the us constitution. I mean, it’s just really, and, and, and that he was so well read in all of these different philosophies and student of history and governments throughout history, and that they took, and they analyzed what the failings were and they said, what can we do to make that not happen when they were trying to come up with what we have now And I just think it’s a remarkable accomplishment. And, I just think it’s, it’s really incredible that we’re here. And I was talking with Tim K hill, and one question I asked him, and I may, I’ll ask you the same. What do you think their reaction would be if they somehow materialized back today And they landed, you know, on the front steps of the birthplaces and they looked around and they saw my K’s and Sweeney’s and all that, but they saw that their homes were still there. What do you, how do you think they would react to Quincy today

Speaker 4: Yeah, you’re talking about Adams. The Adams.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And not just John Adams, but Abigail who was a huge influence on John and yeah. Yeah. Well, Adam’s

Speaker 4: Believe very much that he very much believed in that kind of 18th century sense that history moved, you know, that things were not static, that things were not eternal. So I don’t think it would be surprised. I mean, he might say, what the heck is that thing going by as a car I don’t think you’d be surprised that things were wildly different. So I think that would be okay. I mean, yeah. yeah, he would roll with the punches. I think he would, or roll with the times he was steadfast and a few things. And I think he would be surprised by a lot that happened. I think he still counted on a different kind of future for America than what actually took place. I think what actually took place is probably closer to what Hamilton thought, but I think he would accept that that’s what happened. And I think he would be looking for the sort of core principles that you kind of held to, which were the classics of honor and representation and honesty. And, you would probably judge today’s politicians by those same Steiner’s that he would have used 200 years.

Speaker 2: Yeah, probably right. Jim said that he thinks he probably would have been proud in that kind of what echoing, what you said in terms that history and things move forward and change. But he probably would have been proud that, they kept the homes. It was like, you know, oh my gosh, they’re still here. Tim Cahill said that John Adams sort of felt that history would forget him. Right. And that he would come back and see that, that those birthplaces in Pittsfield and all those are still there. It was like, oh my gosh, they actually took the trouble to keep this. he w he told me that his job was to work at the, for the, birthplaces and peas field. He was like a docent a 12 minute. Yeah. So he knew, well, he knows a lot

Speaker 4: About it. Yeah, he’s right. I mean, that, wouldn’t be the one thing that Adam’s, might’ve been surprised about is that they were still there because he, yeah, he did say monument, I’m never going to have any monuments or everybody else is going to get a monument, but not,

Speaker 2: Is there something about John and Abigail Adams and John Quincy Adams and for, I feel terrible. I never remember. Is it Louisa Yeah. Is there something about them that we would be surprised to learn that you could share with us

Speaker 3: My favorite thing to say about that kind of is just how human they are, who they are. You know, you have instances of them be happy, being prideful of them, having spats with each other as a couple, but, you know, navigating the world in a way that is extremely recognizable to anyone else living today. You know, they were no doubt, remarkable people that that’s not what I’m trying to say at all, that they weren’t, but they were also, you know, you read their diaries or their letters. And you’re just seeing things that are, you know, Abigail and John are having a spat over something. And she’s writing to a friend about it,

Speaker 2: The cap off the toothpaste.

Speaker 3: And it’s, they’re just, I personally really like it when a, someone who is as mythic as, you know, the founding fathers and B suddenly become, oh, no, they could be my neighbor. And they are very interesting for that reason.

Speaker 4: I just saw this is purely coincidence by sheer luck. I was trying to check out something else earlier today. And I opened a book on Abigail and Louise Lou, John Paul Nagle’s Adams women, and this anecdote about Louisa. He was saying, Louisa loved to read apparently. And she gets so totally absorbed in the book that you would forget everything else. And she’d sometimes forget that they had to go out to a party or a ball or something like that. But one time, apparently John Quincy was entertaining people at home. So you have all these guys sitting around, you know, this is probably some big political meeting or a dinner meeting that has political consequences. And Louisa has sort of set things up and gone upstairs to read. And it’s, they’re having their Brandy and cigars downstairs and talking over the great affairs of state and it’s getting darker and darker and darker.

Speaker 4: And we just get so wrapped up in the book that she forgets, what time it is or that they’re downstairs. And that she, that she doesn’t come down to light the candles. And the guy is of course, sitting there saying, well, that we’re not going to know if she realized that when she starts hearing something and she comes downstairs and all these guys, they’re still not letting the catalysts. They’re just trying to walk around in the dark and this tripping over everything. And apparently she said, I couldn’t get over to light the candles. Cause it was so busy life. It was just the most horrific thing I’ve ever read about her. Oh, that

Speaker 2: Is funny. It’s kind of like the modern day, the remotes under the seat cushion, if you just lift it up, you’d find it. That’s, that’s fun. Yeah. Down to earth. And human, I guess, is, is some of the interesting things that you see, talk about being human and human frailties. You learn that Thomas Jefferson was massively in debt and you have to say to yourself, you imagine what he would have been like if he had a credit card. That was something that was such a contradiction in the perception, I guess, that I had,

Speaker 3: Yeah, surely they would be on top of their finances. That, that can’t be

Speaker 2: Right. I guess he was constantly keeping a notebook of like, you know, what the temperature was and the day, you know, and the crops and when things came and all that kind of stuff. And I guess he kept a ledger of what he sped, but he just never managed to any of those things. I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you to share any upcoming events that you want to talk about, that the Historical society may be putting on, or if people want to learn more about this historical society and how they can get involved or perhaps donate and support it, tell us, first of all, what you have upcoming and then tell us, about how people can get involved if they want.

Speaker 3: So I think the main thing that we have upcoming is that we are working on actually getting reopened. so the museum at this point is not quite open to visitors, but we’re hoping by mid July, we will be able to get our doors open to visitors again. So that’s the main thing that we’re preparing for. We also have a few blog articles coming up a little bit about some of the Asian, history and Quincy edge. I can’t remember exactly what you’re working on.

Speaker 4: We’re working on, a couple of things. It’s the 100th anniversary of the Saquon Vendetti trial, which took place in, in Dedham and people who aren’t familiar with that. Cause it’s getting it’s faded a little bit. It was, a very controversial case involving holdup and murder and a very controversial trial and a very controversial execution of the, of the two men with all sorts of political overtones. And they were a kind of a cause for people at the time. And really, for most of the years, since then really foundational to, kind of a lot of people’s feelings in the 20th century and even into this century. But there are Quinsy connections to that all the way through because of where the crime took place in Braintree, where a lot of the people that were involved with it. So we’re trying to tease out how, Quincy played a role in that really kind of earth shaking experience that, really shook the Commonwealth at the time. There, there were massive demonstrations and, and at the time of the execution, everything else, so they were, they were, presented by two Quincy based lawyers, as well as a more, you know, I could go go kind of go down in the weeds in here.

Speaker 2: I didn’t know that they were represented by Queensland attorneys. Yeah,

Speaker 4: Well it, I mean, it’s all kind of weaves in and out, so I just thought it would be interesting to kind of follow the strands of that to see not only what it tells us about the case, but also kind of what it tells us about Quincy it’s a 100 years ago, we’re kind of interested in filling in that gap. You know, we know a lot about the Adams generation. We know a lot really up to when we turned into a city, but we’re, we’re kind of, at least I’m kind of interested in working on what happened after we became a city. And when we became more like the modern Quincy, what is it that we can find out about that, that we’ve not really aware of We can

Speaker 2: Do that maybe in another episode. Yeah. If people want to learn more about how to get involved with this historical if people want to learn more about how to get involved with the Quincy historical society, what’s the best course of action for them to take.

Speaker 3: so the best way to get in touch with us is purely to either call or email us. And if you’re interested in getting involved or donating, et cetera, our email address is [email protected]. And then if you’re interested in seeing what we have coming up or what we are posting or researching about, we have two channels that are probably the best for that. And that would be first of all, our blog, which is Quincy history.org, backslash blog. And then also you can find us on Facebook at Quincy history, awesome. Quinsy

Speaker 2: History.org. All right. Is there anything either of you want to share with us before we say goodbye Well,

Speaker 3: I’ve got one fun, little anecdote kind of leading into the 4th of July. This is one of my sort of fun facts about the academy. And then also about some, one of the other famous founders from Quincy, having to John Hancock, the man of course, whose very large signature is on that piece of paper that we will be celebrating on the 4th of July. Right John Hancock was actually born on the property where the Adams academy is located today. Oh, I didn’t know that the house burned down. I think it was in the 1760s. No, just about the in 1758, I think, but yeah, around there that that house burned down. but fun fact in our collection, we actually have the front door key from that original parsonage in our collection. So that was on display. and that also explains why we have a bust of John Hancock in front of our building. Just

Speaker 2: Learn something. And hopefully the folks who listened to this episode will learn something as well at anything that you want to share before we say goodbye,

Speaker 4: Going back to John, John was, if people want to go and look at the 4th of July and what John says about it, John actually thought maybe it would be July 2nd, not July 4th, but, you can find in any of the books about him, his description of, how we should celebrate July 4th is spot on. He wants fireworks. He wants the whole bit and talking about him, being able to see in the future. We did pretty good with that.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I’d heard that. Well, I want to thank you both very much for taking time out of your busy schedule with the reopening and everything

Speaker 1: Else that you have going on in research and sharing all that you have with us today. And I want to say the door is always open. If you have, have any upcoming events that you want to share and talk about on the podcast, please reach out. And, I hope to talk to you folks, we assume. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening. If you know someone who would be a great guest for the Alabama Quinsy podcast, we want to know about it. Business leaders, historians, unsung heroes, just go to the website at AllAboutQuincyPodcast.com. Fill out the contact form, tell us who you think would be a great guest and why. And we will try to make that happen. So until next week, thanks for listening.