By John J. Galluzzo

Five years past the end of the Great War, America seemed to be resetting itself. Although the shock of all shocks – the in-term passing of a president – caused concern over the summer, the year seemed to be one of births, of new trends, of new ventures and forays into brave new worlds.

On March 2, a new magazine, simply titled “Time,” hit newsstands with its inaugural edition. On April 4, Jack, Harry, Sam, and Albert Warner incorporated their film studio under the name Warner Brothers Pictures. Two days later, trumpeter and crooner Louis Armstrong made the first recording of his soulful New Orleans jazz music. On April 18, baseball’s New York Yankees opened their new ballfield in the Bronx, Yankee Stadium.

On July 13, a bold series of block letters on Mount Lee, overlooking Los Angeles, California, marked the location of a pending housing community to be known as Hollywoodland (the sign would later be shortened by four letters). On October 16, two young men, Roy and Walt Disney, formed a company of their own. The day before, fans of the five-time World Series champion Boston Red Sox received the news that those pesky Yankees had beaten the New York Giants to win their first title. Sox fans knew that it was probably a fluke, and that their team, who last won the championship in 1918, was long overdue for their next World Series appearance.

On Halloween, the last of the Hull steamers, the Rose Standish, was pulled off the Nantasket-to-Boston run for the season, heading for winter quarters in the city at 5:20 p.m. The ladies of the ship, though, would not let the occasion pass without a grand send-off. Inviting the officers of the steamer and their families, as well as the officers and families of the other Hull steamers – the South Shore, Myles Standish, and Mayflower – the ladies threw a joint Halloween and farewell party that included a banquet, speeches, the crooning of Irish melodies by Mate Cornelius McCarthy and fancy dancing by the Misses Florence and Elizabeth Ladrigan.

By no means was it the only Halloween party given that evening. More than 300 guests of the Father O’Brien Memorial Association gathered at the new Municipal Building on Atlantic Hill for a “character party” that included a grand procession and costume contest, easily won by Miss Virginia Murphy. She dressed as a “lady of the olden times,” and had an easy time winning; her clothes were more than 200 years old. At midnight, another symbol of the changing seasons, the switch from summer to winter police forces, took place.

News the next day included the fact that Bank Commissioner Joseph C. Allen would hear the request of a group of 20 local men, led by Selectman Clarence V. Nickerson, to incorporate a Hull cooperative bank in mid-November. Nickerson would soon have another issue with which to wrestle. That same day, November 1, two girls were riding home from the Damon School on the bus, standing in the aisle talking to friends, when suddenly a door opened and the girls tumbled out and fell six feet to the street. Rushed to the Metropolitan District Commission headquarters, they were pronounced none the worse for wear, but Selectman Nickerson wanted answers. Since he was also the superintendent of schools, he would look into the matter personally.

On November 4, Raymond W. Gent, Hull resident and general man about town, saw his name in The Boston Globe, signing a letter he had written to the radio editor. With radio the new craze sweeping the nation, Gent was an early adopter. He described his set and said, “WNAC Boston comes in so loud and clear I cannot keep phones to my ears. Saturday’s broadcast of the Dartmouth-Harvard game was listened to with three pairs of receivers resting inside of a large bowl and could be heard in the room quite distinctly. For distance, I have received stations in the following cities: Minneapolis, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Troy, Springfield, and Providence.” If Gent stayed tuned in for a few more weeks, he could hear Calvin Coolidge, former Hull Village summer resident, become the first president ever to address Congress over the air, in early December.

Three days later, the Point Allerton Coast Guard Station crew launched a rescue attempt. Scituate lobsterman Harry Driscoll, 30, was tending his traps when the motor on his boat died. He hoisted a distress signal, which the station caught. But, before they could reach him, darkness set in and they lost sight of him. A severe storm blew in overnight and the Coast Guardsmen feared the worst. The next morning, however, the crews of the Coast Guard Cutter Ossipee and the Nahant Coast Guard Station spotted him, rescued him and brought him to the Point Allerton station to recover.

In an odd bit of foreshadowing, Hull experienced clock problems around that time. The Village School featured a clock on its tower and during the past summer, the face had been taken down for “a thorough overhauling,” according to The Boston Globe on November 8. Remounted with a shining bronze face, the clock immediately started to lag, falling a few minutes behind. Soon it stopped altogether and the electrical display dimmed, leaving the face in darkness. Forty years later, in January 1963, the town would face another clock problem, as every Saturday night at 9 p.m., the clock on the Municipal Building would stop with a whirr and a buzz, and then run backward.

Despite the storm in the first week of November, the season remained so mild that the holiday spirit seemed slow in building. The biggest news in town concerned the pending marriage of Miss Lillian McGrath of Somerville to Hull’s William Brewster Gould “Bill” Mitchell, a two-sport star at Hingham High School, Worcester Academy, and Tufts College who also served with the Navy in the recent war. Winter club life picked up pace, as the Ladies Aid Society, the Village Parent-Teachers’ Association, the Nantasket Parents-Teachers’ Association, the Hull Woman’s Club, the Fort Revere Enlisted Men’s Club, and the Village Bridge Club all started meeting regularly. The crews constructing a new seawall at Pemberton, thanks to the sponsorship of State Representative John L. Mitchell, went to three eight-hour shifts per day in anticipation of the onset of bad winter weather. But, still, temperatures remained mild into mid-November.

The Mitchell-McGrath wedding would take place on Thanksgiving Eve, as would the benefit dance for Engine 2, Atlantic Hill Fire Station. That event took on significant importance when news reached the ears of the firemen that a member of the Oscar Smith Mitchell American Legion Post, veteran Charles Pitts, would have to lose his left leg in order to stay alive. Calling an emergency meeting, the station’s men voted to turn over all proceeds from the dance to a fund being formed by the Legion, the Legion’s Auxiliary, the Father O’Brien Memorial Association, and the Woman’s Club to support Pitts.

A groundswell of support for the formation of a Boy Scout Troop in Hull built to a crescendo on November 20. The commanding officer of Fort Revere, Captain G.H Knight, vowed to help however he could. Two days later, 33 boys between the ages of 12 and 16 voted yes to forming a troop, adopting the motto “The Best Boy Scout Troop in the State,” under the leadership of Commander Thomas Olsen, leader of the American Legion Post. By the 27th, the troop would be divided in two, one group of older boys and one younger.

Scarlet fever broke out by the 24th, with Miss Ellen Duggan, public health nurse, and town physician Dr. William Sturgis urging precautions. Just a few years removed from what was then known as the Spanish Influenza epidemic, they wanted to ensure all would be safe for the holidays. Superintendent Nickerson closed the Village grammar school well in advance of Thanksgiving, declared for the fifth Thursday of November, the 29th, by President Coolidge. Days later, Nickerson would learn that the state had denied his petition for the formatting of a Hull cooperative bank on the grounds that “public interest did not call for it.” Another group would have more success decades later.

Football games became more common in the Village as November waned, with Hull and Hingham teams squaring off, representative squads from town neighborhoods facing each other and, ultimately, the annual tilt being contested between Hull’s married men and single men on Thanksgiving Day. This year’s contest featured a special guest referee, Chief of Police Frank M. Reynolds. Gregory Ketchum, John Reno, and Kenneth G. Mitchell led the way for the unmarried men in an 18-12 victory. With the culminating game of the football season then in the past, thoughts immediately turned to the new sensation: basketball. “A movement is under way to have basketball games played this winter in town by a local aggregation,” read the Hull column in The Boston Globe of November 30. “Prominent sportsmen and others are interesting themselves in the formation of a team. Permission will be asked of the board of selectmen to allow the games to be played in the Municipal Building, Atlantic Hill.”

The next day, December 1, Margaret Knowles smiled at a blooming American Beauty rose at her home on 125 Spring St. in the Village. Although the calendar said winter, nature said spring. So, too, did the pouring of the foundation for the new war memorial at Nantasket, the dedication of which would be celebrated the next Memorial Day.

December began and ended with touches of sorrow. William Sylvester, 83, passed away at Allerton on December 2. One of the earliest residents of that section of the town, he had served as lighthouse keeper of both Boston and Minot’s Light and then spent 18 years as Hull’s postmaster. Few could remember a Hull without him.

The Boy Scouts swelled to 40 members, meeting at the Service Club at Fort Revere. Smelt started running. Hull reopened its schools on December 5, confident that the scarlet fever scare had passed. The Father O’Brien Memorial Association held a benefit party for Charles Pitts at the Municipal Building, with various forms of entertainment, including an encore fancy dancing display by the Landrigans and their students, including a bunny dance, a skating dance, and a Scottish sword dance. On December 6, Pitts returned home from the hospital where the amputation was administered, swarmed by friends and well-wishers.

Parties filled the calendar: a chicken pie supper at the Pope Memorial Church Hall, a Christmas tree fund soiree at the Central Fire Station, and the senior ball of the Class of 1924 at the Municipal Building, in honor of pending graduates Estelle Skelton, Vera Waterhouse, Lillian M. Jacobs, and others. The Ladies Aid Society, as it had for decades, held its pre-Christmas sale of homemade goods at Gould Memorial Hall. Christmas was on its way, and there was no turning back.

The rule apparently didn’t apply for two men who found a novel way to get arrested in the final two weeks before Christmas. Late on December 11, residents of the Skull Head section of the bayside called Chief Reynolds and told him of a strange disturbance. Hull Police Officers Thomas Glawson and Francis Mitchell responded and found an automobile driving on the rocky shore. The driver – drunk as a skunk – made a wrong turn. “They were bound for Brockton from Boston,” said The Boston Globe the next day. “In proceeding along Nantasket Ave. they turned down A St. at Waveland, taking the outside road bordering on Hull Bay. Mistaking a small path leading to the beach for a highway they turned their car in and landed on a beach.” Cut across the face when their windshield exploded, they nevertheless pressed on, undaunted. “Thinking that they were on a rough road,” said the Globe, “they endeavored to proceed along the beach until apprehended by the police.”

On December 16, a fire broke out on Nantasket Road, the result of an iron left plugged in when the family was away. More concerning, though, was the false alarm pulled at Windermere a few hours later. Fire Chief Henry Stevens launched a quick investigation and apprehended a soldier from the 13th Infantry at Fort Revere. He delivered him to the commanding officer and told him that he would let the military decide what to do with him, wanting to spare him the stress of multiple court hearings and courts-martial.

On the 17th, the Hull Village Club met for the first seasonal gathering at the Nantasket House, next door to the Hull Public Library. A familiar face, Mike Burns, returned to his inn on the corner of Nantasket Avenue and Nantasket Road with his son Russell after a vacation to the Pacific coast. That Friday, the 21st, Hull students celebrated the beginning of the Christmas break with gifts for all and a noon release.

Over the weekend, the three Catholic churches in Hull – St. Mary’s of the Bay, St. Ann’s, and St. Mary’s at Green Hill – were visited by Santa Claus, or, Clauses. Priests at each church spoke on “The Origin of Santa Claus” and “The Spirit of Christmas.” Santas – Wallace Reddie, John E. Glawson, and Edward Gent – appeared in costume and handed out presents to all of the children in each church. In all, the church provided about 500 gifts to local kids.

On Christmas Eve day, James McLearn of X Street picked two pansies from his garden. John E. Rudderham, putting up his storm windows, just in case, heard two American Robins singing at Bayside.

On Christmas Day, Hull families gathered to feast and share time with loved ones. Captain Fred C. Neal of the U.S. Navy rushed home Christmas Day from Brooklyn for a quick meal before setting out for a six-month cruise to India on the 26th. The Mitchells, Vautrinots, McLearns, Jameses, Murphys, Taurasis, and more Hull families enjoyed the day. On the 26th, Albert Jacobs and James Melvin, standout Hingham High School athletes, enlisted with Company K of the 101st Infantry at the Hingham Armory. Joseph Stone of Paragon Park returned from a business trip in Chicago. Petty Officer Albert Chase of the Coast Guard Station, where he had worked for the past five years, received a transfer to Chatham. He waved his many friends farewell as he entered the next phase of his life.

With little left on the calendar, Hull, too, prepared to wave goodbye, to 1923. After a quick town meeting on December 28 to shuffle funds among town departments, all eyes turned toward New Year’s Eve. Then, the saddest note of all sounded.

When the call went out for young men to enlist to fight in the Civil War, 24 Hull men stepped forward, out of a full population of about 225 residents. George Augustus, born to harbor pilot Captain John Augustus and Adeline Mary Turner, was one of those men. Serving with Company E, 47th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, he proudly wore the Union blue uniform. Returning home after the war, ne never left, working as a fisherman. As his comrades quietly vanished, one by one, he soon found himself the last remaining Hull Civil War veteran.

He wore the mantle proudly, leading Memorial Day exercises, marching through the Village to the cemetery where he would silently decorate the graves of his fallen comrades. When Hull’s young men enlisted to fight in the Great War, many claimed him as their inspiration. When they returned and formed the local American Legion Post, they invited him to be an honorary member, and never a party did he miss. Over the past few years, the younger veterans swelled his ranks and marched with him to the cemetery, as collectively they honored their brethren.

George had missed the 1923 Memorial Day exercises. He had left to visit his nephew in New Hampshire. Ultimately he stayed there. A week before Christmas, he took ill. Late on December 30, word reached Hull that he had passed away.

He took the rest of 1923 with him.

Hull was ready to turn the page and start afresh with 1924.

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