The past is very much alive . . . in Massachusetts

I doubt that there's a state in this union with a stronger interest in early American history than the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (Sorry, Virginia.)

In the span of less than two weeks, The Boston Globe ran three articles this month about the fate of a British warship that figured in Paul Revere’s ride, a new interpretation of the Boston Massacre and the recent discovery of a letter written by John Quincy Adams.

The kickoff occurred on April 10 with a story about the wreck of the Somerset, the British ship that Revere slipped past in Boston Harbor on April 18, 1775, as he prepared to mount his horse and notify “every Middlesex village and farm” that the redcoats were headed for Lexington and Concord.

The ship sank in 1778 off Cape Cod, where some of its timbers have surfaced as a result of erosion caused by storms, the Globe reports. Experts have been using high-tech equipment to create a “three-dimensional rendering” of the ship’s remains, before they disappear beneath the waves once again.

On April 18 we learned that our understanding of the Boston Massacre may be inaccurate. The massacre occurred in 1770, when British soldiers fired on an unruly crowd, killing five men and wounding six.

In a lengthy piece in the Globe, historian Richard Archer disputes the impression that the British soldiers fired “mindlessly and arbitrarily” into the crowd. He argues instead that “some of the soldiers got away with murder” by targeting and intentionally shooting specific individuals.

Finally came news, on April 21, that an assistant city solicitor in Quincy, Mass., has found an 1826 letter written by President John Quincy Adams regarding burial arrangements for his parents, John and Abigail Adams.

In the letter, which turned up in a dusty box in the basement of Quincy City Hall, the younger Adams seeks permission to bury his parents in the First Parish Church of Quincy and requests a “plain and modest monument” for them.

“I have many reasons for desiring that this may be undertaken without delay,” Adams wrote, “that both my parents may not remain for an indefinite time without a stone to tell where they lie.’’

In keeping with their son’s wishes, John and Abigail Adams were buried at the church. John Quincy Adams and his wife, Louisa Catherine Adams, were later buried there as well.