Stoughton
Historical
Society Newsletter
JANUARY - FEBRUARY - MARCH
2007
VOLUME XXXVI NO. 19
At
our meeting March 18, “The Great
War in Stoughton and France,” we will be giving presentations on various
aspects of Stoughton 1900-1920, including a fashion show of some dresses put
together by Emily Guertin, Joan O’Hare, and Ruth McDonald, recollections
written by Kenneth Bird, and items related to World War I, the flu epidemic, and
the schools and industries of the period. Come
and see rediscovered photographs of young men training for their duty in WWI on
Billy White’s field, near the corner of Plain and Morton Streets and hear
excerpts from a diary written by WWI vet, Michael Sullivan, who writes of trench
warfare and being gassed during a German artillery barrage.
We have brought out many artifacts and photographs relating to the period
and they will be on display at the Society until the middle of April, when we
will begin to change exhibits for the subsequent Civil War exhibit.
Presidents Report
On Jan 11th we gave a presentation on the
history of our town and related artifacts to a group of fifteen cub scouts, parents, and siblings.
On Jan. 18th, Joe,
Brian, Jack, Dwight, and Joan
cleaned, vacuumed, swept, mopped and
treated the wood floors.
Jean DeVito reminds us that we plan on holding a yard
sale again in June. Please start
saving household items, but NO skiis, stuffed furniture, or electronic
equipment. Things that have sold
well in the past are jewelry, baby
clothes, lamps, small tables and chairs, toys,
recent books and small rugs. We will
accept items starting April 1.
We are
also planning to set up a trip to visit the
American
Textile
Museum
in
Lowell
, or
the Samuel Slater Mill in
Pawtucket
, sometime after Memorial Day. Please
let us know if you would be interested in either trip, which would probably cost
25-50 dollars for the bus, museum tickets, and lunch.
Also indicate whether a weekday, a Saturday, or a Sunday would work best
for you.
On
January 12th, I visited the Canton
Historical Society and was impressed with how many documents from our early
history are owned by their Society. I
would like to set up a future visit, when Jim Roache can make a presentation to
our Society of many of their fascinating papers, including three LARGE
scrapbooks filled with hundreds of documents from the 1700’s, glued into the
book by E V Huntoon, author of The History of Canton.
As many of you know,
Stoughton
and
Canton
were one town until 1797. I also
got to hold in my hand a piece of cloth, woven from yarn spun by the Beaumont
Cotton Factory of Canton circa 1804, the first such cotton operation in the
state of
Massachusetts
.
During
the late afternoon of January 30th, I met with three third grade
teachers; Catherine Mahoney –
South
School
, Toni Jo Guardabasico –
West
School
, and Linda Noble –
Dawe
School
to share some information with them on the history of
Stoughton
, which they will use in their Local
History unit. We were joined for
much of the meeting by Debrah Spinelli, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum,
who had arranged to pay the teachers for two hours with me and two hours
follow-up in a few weeks to write the curriculum outlines.
I brought them a thirteen-page document, which I had put together from
David Lambert’s website www.stoughtonhistory.com
and some of my research. I also gave
the teachers Maps of the Twelve and Twenty Five Divisions for each third grade
classroom in their school, which will be paid for by the grant we received from
the Stoughton Cultural Council, paying us up to $900 for expenses
incurred in this project. We had a
very productive session together, which was helped by a
curriculum document, which I found at the last minute from the Chemung
School, in which the wonderful work
of Helen Hansen was evident back in
1967-8, a three week “Focus on OUR TOWN, which featured many programs,
including the play on E.A. Jones, which Helen directed and we performed for you
all a year or more ago. A copy of
that week of activities is included in this newsletter.
I sent the teachers a follow-up document, which included background
information on the Map of the Twenty-Five Divisions and three biographical
sketches of Stoughton Revolutionary War veterans,
Asa Waters, Lemuel Smith, and Ezra Tilden.
Our historian, Howard Hansen kindly put together a sketch of Ezra Tilden, drawing
upon many days of research and travel he has done, following the marches
described in Tilden’s journal.
The students
from the high school history club, who come on Thursday nights and work
putting the information in our card catalogues into the computer,
have also been converting hostoric video tapes from the Library to DVD.
The tapes include the Parade for the 250th in 1976,
and many other events in that year including
a hypnotist at the Library,.
On February 15, more than
twenty five seventh grade students, parents and teachers from Solomon
Schecter visited the Society to learn more about their home, Swan’s
Tavern and other aspects of the history of
Stoughton
.
Welcome to new members Joe
Kessler of Mountain St. in Sharon, Philbrook Mason of Middleboro, and Laura
Pearlstein of Stoughton, Please
encourage anyone you think might be interested to join our society and make sure
your 2007 dues have been paid; 15.00
for individual, 25.00 for a family
On Sunday, Feb 18, approximately sixty people were entranced by Michael
Tougias’ slide and audio-tape presentation of the incidents surrounding the
loss of the pilot boat Can Do, after
it went out with a crew of five to rescue a drifting coast guard boat during the
Blizzard of 1978. We thank the
Stoughton Public Library and Pat Basler for co-sponsoring this event.
We also thank the
Library for sending us a newly rebound copy of “The Stoughton Sampler,”
which is full of nuggets on
Stoughton
’s history. Anita
Lehto, the References/Adult Services Librarian has given us disbound
pages of nine books, including “History of the Twelfth Massachusetts Volunteer
(Twelfth Webster Regiment)” by Benjamin Cook, which should be helpful in
researching background material for our rededication of the flag from the
Twelfth Massachusetts.
We have five copies of The
Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca available for 10.00.
This book is the current selection for “Stoughton Reads Together”and
a schedule of many related events is also available in our lobby.
Bridgewater State
student and graduate of Stoughton High School Katie Sawyer is doing a report on
local history for a college class and is planning to use the journal of Erastus
Smith during four months in 1857. These
journals have been transcribed and she is able to study them as an attachment to
an email message.
On March 11 at
2:00 pm
, I will be giving a presentation at
the Easton Historical Society on the Hodges Tavern on
Bay Road
in 1811-1812. The daybooks from the
Hodges Collection reveal many aspects of the lives of a number of
Stoughton
,
Sharon
, and
Easton
families, including what they sold to and bought from, Captain Samuel J Hodges
at his tavern-store. A Grant from
the Easton Cultural Council is contributing toward this presentation.
At our April 15 meeting, we will
have the Nominating Committee’s
recommendations of Officers for the next year and will have a slide/lecture
presentation on “The Historic Quincy Milton Quarries”-The Indian Quarries to
the First Commercial Railroad in the USA, and the Granite Industry”presented
by David Hodgson from the Blue Hill Adventure and Quarry Museum.
Mr Hodgson has an extensive background in environmental-outdoor
education, the Olympic Winter Games,
and Outward Bound schools around the world.
On May 6, we will have a special
rededication of the Civil War flag of the 12th
Massachusetts
Regiment,
which was given to the town by Veterans in 1904??
The flag was displayed at the Town Hall for many years, until it
eventually found its way into the attic, from which it was recently retrieved by
Hank Herbowy, who convinced the Town to give it to us.
Our ceremonies will include Civil War re-enactors and an honor guard from
the VFW.
Archivists Report -
Recent acquisitions: a
Charles Vermoskie painting, “Flowers” from Alice Petruzzo,now on display in
the lobby, Stoughton High School Yearbooks for 1943 and 1944,
photo album of Stoughton Post Offices, 1800-1967, and two boxes of
antique books donated by Stankiewicz family.
We have also researched the history of Chemung Hill for a high school
student, the old schoolhouse behind
the Methodist Church for the people who now use it for the food pantry,
information on Dr Charles Walsh for Charlie Wade,
and located documents for the 1900-1920, - WWI and upcoming Civil War
exhibits, – Jack Sidebottom
Curator’s Report
Recent acquisitions: A fire
chief’s helmet from the
Everett
,
MA
Fire Department, donated by the Chestner family. We recently purchased on ebay
a used pair of Corcoran’s jump boots, complete with their “
Stoughton
, Ma” label. Hank, Joan Bryant,
and Denise Peterson have been continuing the inventory and re-marking and
relocating many items. We have also
located a number of items for the current
Stoughton
1900-1920 – WWI exhibit.
Clothing Curators Emily Guertin,
Ruth McDonald and Joan O Hare have attired four manikins in 1900-1920 clothing
and they will describe the clothing for us at our presentation on March 18.
If you have an email
address, please send it to us at stoughtonhistoricalsociety@verizon.net
and let us know if it is permissible to send you the next newsletter via email.
Our printing costs at CopyInks has gone up from .06 per two-sided page to
.10. Even if you do not want your
newsletter sent via email, it will be helpful to have your address for
communications sent out between the period of the newsletters
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