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Frequent contributor Jim Peters sent this post as a follow-up to his earlier essay on the “Native American History of Lowell.”

As a child, television taught me that the Native American, the “Indian,” was savage and without Christian scruples. We have since learned that those with the Christian scruples were often the savages. Blankets were given to the Indians that had been tainted with the pus of Smallpox, ravaging entire tribes and reducing their numbers greatly. “Scalps” were French in origin. The practice was determined to be the best way to verify that you had indeed killed the savage. The Native Americans just copied the European American.

There was money in scalps. Captain John Lovewell of Dunstable removed the scalps of ten Native Americans and sold them to the Crown for one hundred pounds each. That was 1,000.00 pounds in English currency, a fortune for the day. A Supreme Being seemed to play into the mix as the year 1663 was disturbed by many earthquakes. “The mounting hostility of the Indians,” kept the area from enjoying the relative peace and tranquility of many of the other areas that surrounded it. Rivers became important, and the town of Concord was formed directly around the river that bears its name.

The Concord people, the European Americans, found it difficult to explore much beyond the reaches of their Garrison Houses. A Garrison House was built like a fort, and was of a design that provided some protection from bands of Native Americans who tormented the Europeans. Garrisons were usually built in an enclosure, giving them the appearance of a fort. read more »

“Lowell Firefighting” on Facebook reminds us that it was this week one year ago that one of two massive winter fires occurred on Bridge Street in Lowell, and points us to some incredible photos that accompany this blog post by an eyewitness to the fire.

Friday afternoon I traveled to McKenna-Ouellette Funeral Home on Hildreth Street to attend the wakes of Rudolphe “Red” Ouellette and Alfred “Nick” Favreau, two life-long residents of Lowell who were friends throughout their 88 years of life, who died within hours of each other on the same day, and who were waked in adjoining rooms at the same time.

Both Ouellette and Favreau were born in Centralville, graduated from St. Louis School and Lowell High School. Both served in the European Theater during World War II as members of the US Army. Both were wounded in battle. Both returned and spent the rest of their lives making Lowell a better place for all of us. Favreau had a 35 year career at the US Post Office. Amazingly, he never took a single sick day during that entire time. When he retired, he had accumulated 2500 hours of sick time. Ouellette held several jobs, but was best known for his service as a member of Lowell’s board of assessors and as a commissioner of the Commonwealth’s Appellate Tax Board. He was also very active in local Veteran’s organizations and commemorations which is where I got to know him best.

We extend our posthumous thanks to Red Ouellette and Nick Favreau for their service to our country and to our city.