Stories of Lynn Mural is on the side of the Lynn Arts Building in downtown Central Square. On a monumental scale it illustrates the history of Lynn, combining large scale painted historical figures with intimate mosaic panels of life in Lynn today seen through the eyes of its youth.

Lynn mosaic (detail from the mosaic arch) showing food representative of the different cultural backgrounds of Lynn students. It was created by students at Lynn Classical High School with the artists and art teacher.

Maria Mitchell, the first female astronomer, was born in Nantucket, but in later years lived in Lynn, where she had an observatory. Mitchell discovered a comet in 1847 for which she became world famous. A Lynn landmark, High Rock Tower, is on the right side. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave who arguably became the most prominent abolitionist and a world famous speaker and writer, lived in Lynn for a period of time in the 1840's.

Lynn Abolitionists: Frederick Douglass and the Hutchinson Family Singers

Charles H. Woodbury (above, portrait based on one by John Singer Sargent) was one of the prominent Lynn Beach Painters. Alonzo Lewis (below) was an ardent abolitionist, writer, poet and historian of Lynn (History of Lynn published in 1829). In background (upper right) Lynn children explore Red Rock on the Lynn seashore.

On the left side is Dungeon Rock where according to popular legend, Thomas Veal buried his pirate treasure. At the top left is another landmark of Lynn Woods, the Stone Tower which was constructed in 1936 under the auspices of the W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration).

Jan Matzeliger, inventor of the shoe lasting machine; in the background Elvira Hall addresses hemmers and stitchers during the 1860 Great Shoe strike.

Harry Agganis (know as the Golden Greek) was a college football star (Boston University) and first baseman for the Boston Red Sox (1954-1955). In the background is one of Lynn's famous vaudeville/movie theaters, the Olympia Theater.

Lydia Pinkham was a successful businesswoman in 19th century Lynn, who manufactured and marketed Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, one of the best known patent medicines of the times. It was marketed primarily to women and many consider her an early crusader for women's health issues.

Cyrus Tracy was an early Lynn naturalist and writer, who formed the Exploring Circle with some friends, to investigate and describe the natural wonders of Lynn Woods. They were part of an early movement to secure recreational wilderness for urban residents.

Mary Baker Eddy, who lived in Lynn for a period, was the founder of Christian Science in the latter half of the 19th century. Her home (behind her in the mural) is preserved as an historic site. During her time in Lynn, Mary Baker Eddy injured herself in a fall. As a result of her recovery, which she felt came from her reading of the Bible, this became a turning point in her life.

Elihu Thomson (left side) was an electrical engineer, who founded the Thomson-Houston Electric Company which in 1892 merged with Edison's General Electric Company to become the General Electric Company. Thomson chose to keep his laboratory in Lynn, so that he could continue his research. He has over 700 patents to his name. On the right side of Thomson is Hiram Marble, a Lynn Spiritualist, who spent years living at Dungeon Rock (Lynn Woods) searching for the lost pirate treasure of Thomas Veal. In the background you can see the tunnels that were dug in the search for the treasure and public tours which Marble led to raise funds for the quest.

Historical figures from Lynn's industrial past in the shoe industry and General Electric.

Vincent Ferrini was a poet who grew up working in the Lynn shoe factories and General Electric, like many others. He dreamed of being a poet and after graduating from Lynn Classical High School, he self-educated himself at the Lynn Public Library. Many of his early poems are about the harsh lives of the working people of Lynn, including the debilitating strikes and lay-offs. The jet engine built at General Electric is depicted in the background.

Mural panel depicting various immigrant groups in Union Square, including Central Americans and Portugese.

Mural panel highlighting immigrants in Union Square from Greece and Italy. On the left side is a portrait of the famous photographer Lewis Hine, who photographed children and families in Somerville on Horace St. in 1912

The Union Glass Company was a glass manufacturer located at 52 Webster Avenue, Somerville, Massachusetts, and active from 1854–1927. In its early years, the Union Glass Company manufactured a wide range of flint glass products including lamps, lamp trimmings, bottles, windows, lenses, and tableware.

This panel highlights some of the newer immigrant groups in Union Square, including this image of a dancer during the annual Nepal Festival.

This panel focuses primarily on youth and education in Union Square. Besides depictions of students, there are images of the older Pope Elementary School which is demolished and the newly built Argenziano Elementary School.

Because Union Square has historically always been a busy intersection, a traffic officer was situated in the middle of the square during the later part of the 20th century. On the right side is a 1957 Edsel, the last car manufactured by Ford in what is now the Assembly Square Mall building.

Tip O'Neill mural. Scroll right to view entire mural.

Scroll right to view entire mural. Mural photo by Marc St.Onge

Scroll right to view entire mural.

Joshua Bowen Smith was born in 1813 in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, to a mother of mixed African-American/Native American ancestry and a British father. He lived in Cambridge at 79 Norfolk St. where there is a plaque installed by the Cambridge African American History Project. Smith became involved in the Underground Railroad and was a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, which worked to aid refugee slaves. He harbored refugee slaves in his home in Cambridge, employed them in his business as cooks and waiters, and often gave them money out of his own pocket, as well as weapons and supplies if they were traveling on to Canada to ensure their freedom.

On the left side is Israel "Izzy Maldonado, founder with his wife Carmen, of the iconic Puerto Rican restaurant "Izzy's Restaurant and Sub Shop", which fed Port residents for over 40 years at its location 169 Harvard St. In the middle is Rabbi Moshe Holcer (1912 to 2004) who was at the Temple Beth Shalom (known as Tremont Street Shul) for many years. Behind is Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons and family, who grew up in the Port and has served Cambridge on the City Council for many years. On the right side is Port activist Lorraine Scott, who lived on Washington St.

William Lloyd Garrison, ardent abolitionist and publisher of the "Liberator" lived in Cambridge from 1839 to 1843 at a house located 283,285 Broadway.

Edwin Land (1909-1991)was the inventor of the Polaroid Camera. Polaroid's headquarters in the early days, was on Main St. in the Port neighborhood. He used to take pictures, when trying out his cameras, of residents of the Newtowne Court Housing Project which was located across Main Street from Polaroid's buildings..

Left side is Daniel Chapman Stillson (March 25, 1826 to August 23, 1899)who was an American inventor. He invented the modern adjustable pipe wrench. He worked as a machinist at the J. J. Walworth Company in the Port section of Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Main Street.. While at the J. J. Walworth Company, he developed his pipe wrench, which he originally carved out of wood. On September 13, 1870, he was issued his patent. Stillson was paid about $80,000 in royalties during his lifetime. On the right side is Charles Davenport, a manufacturer of railroad cars whose business was at 710 Main St., location of the Davenport Car Manufactory in the Port. After learning to build coaches and carriages, Charles Davenport went into business for himself in 1832 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a car builder, Davenport was not only a pioneer firm in the United States, but for the 22 years during which he carried on the business his was the largest car establishment in the country.

The Squirrel brand dates back to 1890 when it started as the Austin T. Merrill Company in Roxbury. Incorporated in 1899 as the newly named Squirrel Brands Salted Nut Company, the company’s ownership changed and two long-time employees, Perley G. Gerrish and Fred S. Green, began to run the business. As the company grew, it moved from its Boston location to Cambridge in 1903 (building on corner of Portland and Main St. that was just torn down) and then to the building on Broadway in 1915. Squirrel Brand was the first candy to put nuts in the candy. The Squirrel Nut Zipper was its most famous candy.

Maria Louise Baldwin was a Port resident who lived at 196 Prospect St. It was her home when she served as the first female African-American principal in a Massachusetts school at Cambridge's Agassiz Grammar School (from 1916 onwards). As master, she supervised 12 teachers, all white, who presided over a 98% white student body. The Agassiz School has since been renamed the Maria Baldwin School in her honor.

Robert Parris Moses (January 23, 1935 to July 25, 2021) was an American educator and civil rights activist, known for his work as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on voter education and registration in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement, and his co-founding of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. The youth center on Harvard St. in the Port is named after Bob and Janet Moses.

Hovey's Tavern, 405 Mass. Ave., was the commercial focus of early Port. It was the meeting place of the Amicable Lodge, oldest masonic body in Cambridge 1802-1828.

The Curtis Davis & Co. was located on Portland St. in the Port. Their most famous soap was called "The Welcome Soap". Lever Brothers entered the United States market in 1895, with a small New York City sales office. In 1898, it bought a soap manufacturer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Curtis Davis Company, moved its U.S. headquarters to Cambridge and started production at a factory located at what is now Technology Square. By 1929, Lever Brothers employed 1,000 workers in Cambridge, and 1,400 nationwide, making it the third-largest soap manufacturer in the U.S.

Lawrence Hinkson, aka Reverend Larry Love, was a fixture in Cambridge’s Harvard and Central Squares from the mid-80’s until his passing in 2001. He would often be seen dressed as an odd combination of drum majorette/crossing guard in roller skates, twirling a baton and blowing a whistle while “directing” traffic on Mass Ave as a self-appointed “volunteer policeman”. The child in the window is life long Port resident Marion Darlington Hope and her mother.

Newtowne Court, completed in 1938 under the Works Progress Administration, is one of the oldest housing projects in the nation. Next to it is Washington Elms. Jane McGuirk Richards reminisced about the early days living in Newtowne Court in 2014: "People working for Polaroid came across the street dressed in their white coats asking to take pictures. Edwin Land may even have come over to take our pictures when he was working on the instant camera. We went to Jimmy’s and the Mahlowitz’s market. There were many small grocery stores serving the Elms and the Court. Kids went to Catholic schools and to the Maynard school. We were members of St. Mary’s Parish even after leaving the Court. In the ’60s when I was a young mother with kids, I fought to stop the Inner Belt, which would have come down Norfolk Street and torn the parish apart. Father Paul McManus helped lead the group that fought it.

Traditional May Day parties and parades were held at Newtowne Court Housing Project.

Suzanne Revaleon Green was my neighbor on Worcester St., where she lived from 1912 to 20012. In this image she is a small girl on the right, with her baby brother Paul in the carriage, and her mother Ruby Higginbothom on the left. She lived most of her life at 9 Worcester St. where this image was originally taken. Green graduated from the Fletcher School and then Cambridge Rindge and Latin. In 1937 she was appointed to teach at the Houghton School on Putnam Ave. As she told me in a story, five years later, when she decided to get married, she was fired from her position along with two other recently married women, one Catholic and one Jewish. Her new husband, the attorney Robert H. Green, sued the city contending that the firing had been illegal. The battle dragged on, but it was resolved in their favor and all three women were reinstated and awarded their back pay. Green decided to resign (as she had initially planned to do before the firing, but the other women continued to teach in the schools. It was some years more before the law was changed and all married women were permitted to teach in the schools. Green was a fifth-generation Cantabrigian, scion of two families with long, storied New England lineages going back to the 1700s. The Revaleon family history includes early membership in the Prince Hall Lodge; relationships with the historically important Howard family as well as Wampanoag, Massasoit and Nipmuc families; and Civil War military service. Her grandmother was a descendent of the Lewis family, noted abolitionists, several of whom established the Lewisville community of Cambridge in the 1800s.

Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli (May 23, 1810 to July 19, 1850) was an American journalist, editor, critic, translator, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was the first American female war correspondent, writing for Horace Greeley's New-York Tribune, and full-time book reviewer in journalism. Her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century is considered the first major feminist work in the United States. She was born in the Port at a house on Cherry St.

Elias Howe, inventor of the sewing machine had his workshop at 740 Main St. Howe was an inventor (1819-1867) who perfected an early sewing machine at a site on Main St. in 1844 and 1845.

Margaret Fuller House, 71 Cherry St. was the birthplace of Margaret Fuller (1810-1850). She was an early proponent of women's rights, an author, and a Transcendentalist.

The Wayne History Mural (center detail)

Beverly history panorama.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Nobel Peace Prize winner and Guatemalan human rights activist Rigoberta Menchu is depicted in the lower right of this image.

Woody Gutherie

Scroll right to view entire mural.

Scientist Leo Szilard, who helped build the first atomic weapons, led other scientists in attempting to prevent the use of them. He holds a petition that he and 70 other scientists signed and gave to President Truman in 1945.

The Atlanta artist Tom Ferguson, who assisted painting of the Seminole Peace mural.

Nuclear scientist Robert Oppenheimer.

Peace activist from the Ploughshares Peace Movement Daniel Berrigan.

Peace activist Dorthy Day, Bayard Rustin, and Peace Pilgrim. Above the ship the Golden Rule sails into a nuclear testing sight to protest the tests.

The artist (David Fichter) posing in front of the Seminole Peace Mural