When I was tracing people in Boston, I used a Business Library to great advantage. It was located close to the Court House and had a variety of reference materials. It might be of some help. David Fahey wrote: > Martha Pickrell (email: [log in to unmask]) will soon publish a > short biography of the ribbon worker Emma Molloy together with some of her > writings (forthcoming this April from Guild Press in Indianapolis). There > is one loose end that she would like help in tying up: a reference in 1876 > to a meeting of a ribbon society in Boston at the Friendly Inn. Martha > Pickrell hopes to be able to identify the Friendly Inn. She thinks it may > have been a temperance hotel. The Boston Public Library has been unable to > find the Friendly Inn in its records.