Derek Strahan

Aside from running the Lost New England blog, Derek Strahan is the author of two books: Lost Springfield, Massachusetts and New England Then and Now, along with being the host of the Western Mass History podcast. Derek is a graduate of Westfield State University, with degrees in English and Regional Planning, and he currently works as a land use and environment planner in Western Massachusetts. Derek also serves on the board of directors of the Springfield Preservation Trust, and he lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife Melissa and their two sons.

Carrie Tower, Brown University, Providence, RI

February 9, 2018December 20, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Carrie Tower at Brown University, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The tower in 2016:

Located at the northwest corner of the Front Green at Brown University, the 95-foot tall Carrie Tower was built in 1904 and designed by architect Guy Lowell. It was donated by Paul Bajnotti in memory of his wife, Caroline Mathilde Brown. Her grandfather, Nicholas Brown, Jr., was the school’s namesake, and her father, Nicholas Brown III, was a politician and diplomat. Because of her father’s career, she spent much of her childhood in Europe, and through her travels she met Paul Bajnotti, an Italian diplomat. The two were married for 16 years, until her death in 1892, and the tower was dedicated to her memory, complete with an inscription at the base that reads, “Love is Strong as Death.”

Today, very little has changed in this scene. The Carrie Tower is still standing, as is Robinson Hall in the distance to the right. However, the clock no longer functions, and the chimes have not been used in decades. The base of the tower was restored in 2011, but it is still in need of restoration, including the interior staircase. Because of this, it is closed to the public, as are the underground tunnels that once connected the tower to the John Hay Library on the left, and Manning Hall to the right.

Sayles Hall, Brown University, Providence, RI

February 9, 2018December 19, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Sayles Hall on the campus of Brown University, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The building in 2016:

Sayles Hall was built on the College Green at Brown University in 1881, and was donated by Pawtucket textile manufacturer William F. Sayles. He named it in honor of his son, William Clark Sayles, who died in 1876 during his sophomore year at Brown. The building’s Romanesque architecture was typical for institutional buildings of the era, and was designed by Providence architect Alpheus C. Morse. The front of the building features classrooms, while the much larger back portion is an assembly hall.

It is partially obscured by trees in the present-day view, but the exterior of Sayles Hall looks the same today as it did when it was completed over 130 years ago. Its assembly hall has been used over the years for everything from alumni dinners to winter baseball practices, and it remains in use today for lectures, concerts, and other events.

John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, RI

February 9, 2018December 17, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The John Carter Brown Library on the campus of Brown University, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The library in 2016:

The John Carter Brown Library is one of seven libraries at Brown University, featuring an extensive collection of rare, colonial-era books published in the Americas. Its origins trace back to the private collection of John Carter Brown, who was a member of Providence’s prominent Brown family. His father, Nicholas Brown, Jr., was the donor for whom the school was named, and many other family members played an important role in the founding and development of the school.

After his death in 1874, John Carter Brown left his collection to his son, John Nicholas Brown. He, in turn, left instructions in his will to establish a library with the collection, to be named in memory of his father. Although his will did not stipulate a location, the library trustees chose Brown University, and it opened in 1904, four years after his death.

Like many other early 20th century libraries, the building is an example of Beaux-Arts architecture, and was designed by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, the firm that would go on to design Brown’s John Hay Library a few years later. The library’s opening in the spring of 1904 coincided with the completion of a nearby gate, which was donated by John Nicholas Brown’s widow and named for her late husband.

Today, the front facade of the library is unchanged from the first photo, but its holdings have significantly increased over the years. A new addition was completed in 1990, and named the Caspersen Building in honor of the parents of its benefactor, Finn M. W. Caspersen. The library now has over 50,000 books from the 19th century and earlier, along with thousands of rare maps, prints, manuscripts, and other documents.

Front Green, Brown University, Providence, RI

December 13, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Front Green at Brown University, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The Front Green in 2016:

The Front Green is on the east side of Prospect Street, and is just west of the College Green, with the buildings on the right side dividing these two open spaces. These three buildings are among the oldest on the Brown campus, and were mentioned in the earlier post on the College Green. The two most prominent in this scene are University Hall, in the right center of the scene. Built in 1770, it was the school’s first building after moving to the current Providence campus. Just beyond it, in the center of the photo, is Manning Hall, which was built in 1834 as a library and chapel.

In the past 110 years, essentially nothing has changed in this scene. All of the buildings on the right are still there, as are several campus structures in the distance, which are barely visible on the left side of the photos. In the lower left of the scene is Robinson Hall, which was built in 1878 at the corner of Prospect and Waterman Streets opposite the Front Green. Just to the left of it, on the Front Green itself, is the Carrie Tower. This 95-foot tower is the newest addition to the scene, and was built in 1904 in honor of Caroline Mathilde Brown, who was the granddaughter of Nicholas Brown, the man for whom the college was named.

Van Wickle Gates, Brown University, Providence, RI

December 13, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Van Wickle Gates on Prospect Street, opposite College Street at Brown University, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2016:

These gates at Brown University were built in 1901, with funds provided by 1876 graduate Augustus Stout Van Wickle, who had died in 1898. Although the two smaller gates on either side are usually open, the central gates are largely symbolic. They are only open three times per year; they open inward at the beginning of the school year and at the beginning of the second semester, and they open outward for the Commencement ceremonies every spring.

Today, aside from the minor addition of a lamppost on the right side, absolutely nothing has changed in this scene. The gates look the same as they did just a few years after they were completed, and the buildings behind it are likewise unchanged. To the left is Manning Hall, which was completed in 1834 and is among the oldest buildings on campus. Even older, though, is University Hall to the right, which built in 1770 and was the schools first building at its current campus.

Providence Athenaeum, Providence, RI

February 9, 2018December 12, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Providence Athenaeum on Benefit Street in Providence, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The building in 2016:

Today, public libraries can be found in virtually every town in New England as well as throughout the rest of the country, but they were virtually unheard of prior to the second half of the 19th century. Even here in Providence, the first public library did not open until 1878. Before this, many cities had private libraries, which were funded through membership dues. In Providence, two such libraries were the Providence Library Company and the Providence Athenaeum, which merged in 1836 to form the present-day Athenaeum. Two years later, the library opened their current building here on Benefit Street near the corner of College Street, just down the hill from Brown University.

One of the most notable incidents in the history of this building came within ten years after it opened. In 1848, Edgar Allan Poe was courting Sarah Helen Whitman, a Providence poet who, at 45 years old, was six years Poe’s senior. He proposed to her in a Providence cemetery (naturally, for Poe), and she eventually accepted, provided that he sobered up. During their engagement, they frequently visited the Athenaeum together. During one such visit on December 23, 1848, two days before their planned wedding, Whitman received a note saying that Poe had been drinking the night before and that morning. Here in the library, she called off the wedding, and soon after Poe returned to Richmond, never to see Whitman again. He was dead less than a year later in bizarre circumstances, a few days after being found delirious and wandering the streets of Baltimore.

Nearly a century after Poe’s visits, the Athenaeum was frequented by another prominent horror fiction writer, Providence native H.P. Lovecraft. Largely influenced by Poe’s writings, Lovecraft was well aware of the Poe connection to the building, writing in one letter to author Frank Belknap Long:

Providence, which spurn’d Eddie living, now reveres him dead, and treasures every memory connected with him. The hotel where he stopt, the churchyard where he wander’d, the house and garden where he courted his inamorata, the Athenaeum where he us’d to dream and ramble thro’ the corridors—all are still with us, and as by a miracle absolutely unchang’d even to the least detail.

Lovecraft lived here on College Hill, just a short walk from both the John Hay Library and the Athenaeum, and he often visited both. Aside from mentioning it in his letters, he also included it in several of his works, alongside other Providence landmarks.

As for the Athenaeum building itself, it is still in use by the library more than 175 years after it opened. It has seen several additions, though, to house the library’s growing collections. The first came in 1914, and was located at the southeast corner of the building, on the back and to the right when seen from this angle. The second addition, visible on the right side of the 2016 photo, opened in 1979 with an architectural design that, like the 1914 addition, matched the original 1838 design of the building. Today, it is one of the many historic buildings still standing in the College Hill neighborhood, and it forms part of the College Hill Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.