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Boston, 1880. 12mo (6.625” x 3.875”), printed light green wrappers. 48 pp., folding map, 5.75” x 12.375” plus margins. CONDITION: Very good, wrapper splitting and chipping at head and foot of spine.

A scarce guide to the leisure destinations in the Boston Harbor region, including a map of the routes and a brief history of steamer travel between Boston and Hingham.

“Fortunate, indeed, it is” for the poor and laboring classes of the Boston area that “there is an Elysium, and that there are men with generosity of soul large enough to take in the desires of the masses and give them the means by which they can be transported to these fields of pleasure. The eager anticipation of the excursionist has been fully met by the more anticipating benefactors, and to-day we have the Boston and Hingham Steamboat Company, who have done more good in the past toward the morals and health of the swarming population of Boston during the summer than any other source of influence…” So opens this benevolent guide for the lowly swarmers to the various recreation destinations of Boston Harbor. A brief history the Boston and Hingham Steamboat Company (with illustrations of their steamboats) is followed by blurbs on Fort Independence, Spectacle Island, Long Island, Nix’s Mate (“one of the greatest points of interest in the harbor”), Hull, the Weir River, Nantasket Beach, and many more islands and points of interest, as well as relevant towns and hotels.

The “Map of Boston Harbor and Diagram of Streets leading to Rowe’s Wharf, the Landing-Place in Boston of the Steamers of the Boston & Hingham Steamboat Company” includes an inset map in the top right corner of the relevant “Part of Boston.” Oriented with northeast at the top, the map shows the harbor and islands from Boston in the northwest to Hingham in the southeast, and from part of Nut Island in the southwest to part of Calf island in the northeast. Several hotels and other establishments dot the base of Nantasket Beach extending just northeast of Hingham, and landmarks—Otis Hill, Melville Gardens, Ft. Warren, etc.—are labeled throughout. The steamer routes are indicated with dotted lines, one of which extends to the east “To Minot’s Light, Plymouth & Provincetown.”

Woodcut illustrations show tourists enjoying the boats, cupola, restaurant, and rocks at “Ragged Island,” the churning waves at Cohasset Rocks, Boston Light, the town of Hull, Thompson’s Island, and more. Included are ads for lamps, grocery delivery, framing services, menswear, hotels, battery-based patent medicine (“Electricity is Life!”), a “scenic and decorative” artist, and so on.

OCLC records just two holdings, at USC and University of Delaware.

Item #9794

Price: $225.00