Errata

 Mistakes happen, and there were a few made in the research, editing, and production of Always Something Doing and of Scollay Square.  The ones of which I am aware are listed here.  If you believe you have spotted any others, feel free to bring them to my attention in an email. 

 Due to an error in research, John Scollay (Boston's Fire Marshall in 1747 and later a member of the Sons of Liberty,) is incorrectly identified as the same man who leased the Winnisimmet Ferry in 1692.  He wasn't, and it has since been assumed that he was actually John's father (as he is identified in a number of sources.)  But research by descendants of the Scollay family now place the assumption in doubt.  It's possible that the ferry owner was "actually a son of William Scollay (brother of 7.James Scollay) who also emigrated to Boston," according to one researcher.  We continue to press for the final answer. 

P.T. Barnum is incorrectly identified as a co-owner of Austin & Stone's Dime Museum.  Mr. Barnum, who had great success with Dime Museums in New York and elsewhere, was not connected with Austin &Stone's in Boston.  (In fact, he was good friends with Moses Kimball, who owned the competing Boston Museum on Tremont Street, and was therefore disinclined to such a venture.)

A production error reversed and printed in negative the image on the bottom of page 

 1930 is written as the year of the closing of the Old Howard by the Watch and Ward Society. That's a typo: the year was, in fact, 1933. 

 Lilly Ann Rose's receipt from Simpson's Loan Company is identified as being for a diamond necklace.  It is for a watch. 

Here, I quoted James McCarthy, a former member of the Boston police Vice Squad who was there in the Old Howard theater in 1953 when film was taken of a performance of three strippers.  McCarthy told me in an interview that the three strippers who were filmed - and fined - by the court were Rose La Rose, Mary Goodneighbor (a.k.a. Irma the Body) and Princess Domain.  But a series of posts on a Facebook site questioning the identity of that third stripper led someone to contact me requesting clarification.  So I went back to the photocopies I still have of the newspapers, only to find out that I should not have relied entirely on Mr. McCarthy's memory. 

From the Boston Globe on November 9, 1953: "Fined yesterday were Rose La Rose, Mary Goodneighbor, known as Irma the Body, Marion Russell and managers Frank Engel of the Casino and Max Michaels of the Old Howard."  I never cross-referenced Mr. McCarthy's recollection with the newspaper accounts, which led to this error.  So it was NOT Princess Domain (DoMay) who was the third stripper, but Ms. Russell. 

I had long been saying (and then put in writing) that Dentist William T. Morton's office was located at 19 Tremont Row and the Papanti Dance Studio was located at 21 Tremont Row. Both of those statements are true. HOWEVER, my assumption they were on the part of Tremont Row across from Brattle Street, just below the studios of photographers Southworth & Hawes, was incorrect.  Recent evidence (brought to my attention by Rajesh Haridas, an Anesthesiologist with an interest in the history of Anesthesiology) shows that Dr. Morton and the Papanti dance studio were actually south on Tremont Street, across from the Boston Museum. Still in Scollay Square, but not in its center.

My chagrin over this error is mitigated, only in part, by the fact that Walter Muir Whitehill, in his pamphlet on the Square, also got the two sections of Tremont Row mixed up, as well.