By Barbara Rimkunas
“Our little quiet village today, is alive, there is a circus in town, and the railroad annual meeting meets here today, which brings people from all parts, some for amusement, some for Business, some to get money, and some to get rum, I have heard and saw more intoxicated today than I should want to see in a long life.”
It is clear, from her diary entry on September 8th, 1852, that Hannah Brown was not a lover of frivolity. As a small shareholder of the Boston and Maine railroad, she attended the annual meeting and not the circus. What is not clear, from her diary, is whether the drunkenness she so disapproved of was the result of circus goers or rail investors.