Tucked away on Main Street in Andover is the current home for not only the oldest bookstore in Massachusetts but also the oldest bookstore in the United States.  Established in 1809, the same year Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin and Edgar Allan Poe were all born, the Andover Bookstore has gone through different owners and been housed in a couple of different locations over the centuries.  Almost a quarter of the way into the 21st century, the store name, with shelves and shelves of books, still stands.  General manager Sarah Klock said the bookstore’s origins go back to when it was located at Philips Academy and used as a publishing house.  The location moved over the years as its ownership changed, eventually landing in the current location that was once the home of a town doctor.  The parlor of that English Tudor-style home built in 1811 now serves as the first room customers walk in when they visit the bookstore.  Ryan Manicini  Literary Hub  October 3, 2023   

John Hanson (1721–1783) was an American Founding Father, merchant, and politician from Maryland during the Revolutionary Era.  Hanson's grandfather, also named John, came to Charles County, Maryland, as an indentured servant around 1661.  In 1779, Hanson was elected as a delegate to the Continental Congress after serving in a variety of roles for the Patriot cause in Maryland.  He signed the Articles of Confederation in 1781 after Maryland joined the other states in ratifying them.  In November 1781, he was elected as the first President of the Confederation Congress (sometimes styled President of the United States in Congress assembled), following ratification of the articles.  Hanson's career in public service began in 1750, when he was appointed sheriff of Charles County.  In 1757, he was elected to represent Charles County in the lower house of the Maryland General Assembly, where he served for twelve years, sitting on many important committees.  Maryland was a proprietary colony, and Hanson aligned himself with the "popular" or "country" party, which opposed any expansion of the power of the proprietary governors at the expense of the popularly elected lower house.  He was a leading opponent of the 1765 Stamp Act, chairing the committee that drafted the instructions for Maryland's delegates to the Stamp Act Congress. In protest of the Townshend Acts, in 1769 Hanson was one of the signers of a non-importation resolution that boycotted British imports until the acts were repealed. When Hanson was elected to Congress, Maryland was holding up the ratification of the Articles of Confederation.  The state, which did not have any claims on western land, refused to ratify the Articles until the other states had ceded their western land claims.  When the other states finally did so, the Maryland legislature decided in January 1781 to ratify the Articles.  When Congress received notice of this, Hanson joined Daniel Carroll in signing the Articles of Confederation on behalf of Maryland on March 1, 1781.  With Maryland's endorsement, the Articles officially went into effect.   In 1782, Hanson proclaimed on behalf of the Continental Congress for a day of "Solemn Thanksgiving".  The Articles of Confederation stipulated that presidents of Congress serve one-year terms, and Hanson became the first to do so.  Contrary to the claims of some of his later advocates, however, he was not the first president to serve under the Articles nor the first to be elected under the Articles.  When the Articles went into effect in March 1781, Congress did not bother to elect a new president; instead, Samuel Huntington continued serving a term that had already exceeded a year.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanson  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Aruba, officially the Country of Aruba, is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about 29 kilometres (18 mi) north of the Venezuela peninsula of Paraguaná and 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Curaçao.  It measures 32 kilometres (20 mi) long from its northwestern to its southeastern end and 10 kilometres (6 mi) across at its widest point.  Together with Bonaire and Curaçao, Aruba forms a group referred to as the ABC islands.  Collectively, these and the other three Dutch substantial islands in the Caribbean are often called the Dutch Caribbean, of which Aruba has about one-third of the population.  In 1986, it became a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and acquired the formal name the Country of Aruba.  Aruba is one of the four countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Netherlands, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten; the citizens of these countries are all Dutch nationals.  Unlike much of the Caribbean region, Aruba has a dry climate and an arid, cactus-strewn landscape.  The relatively warm and sunny weather, and the climate allow for related tourism activities all year round.  Its area is 179 km² (69.1 sq mi) and it is quite densely populated, with 108,166 inhabitants per the 2020 census.  The name Aruba most likely came from the Caquetío Oruba which means "well situated island", seeing as it was the Caquetío who were present on the island when it was first set foot upon by Alonso de Ojeda.  Between 1529 and the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), the name "Isla de Oruba" was used for the island by the Spanish.  After the signing, the island was ceded to the Dutch and gradually its name changed to Aruba.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aruba

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2733  October 18, 2023